


Exits, Entrances, and the Spaces in Between

by voidknight



Series: Two Michaels vs. the Existential Turmoil of Being Human [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Arguments, Backstory, Character Study, Conversations, E-mail, Existential Angst, Existentialism, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Kissing, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non explicit nudity, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Nonbinary Character, On Hiatus, Other, POV Second Person, Panic Attacks, Philosophy, Post-Canon, Shopping, Tenderness, The Buried - Freeform, The Spiral, maybe a little plot. just a lil. as a treat, michael has a complicated relationship with gender, the inherent weirdness of having a body, the vast, video game references, way too many references to academic theory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 43,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidknight/pseuds/voidknight
Summary: Mike Crew is alive and free, but his lungs still sometimes feel caked with dirt. Michael is human again, but he dreams of hallways and doors and twisting patterns.Living in reality is strange, but at least they have each other.(Not a stand-alone - this is a sequel to the first fic in this series, and requires that context)
Relationships: Michael "Mike" Crew/Michael | The Distortion
Series: Two Michaels vs. the Existential Turmoil of Being Human [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760740
Comments: 66
Kudos: 92





	1. On Sleep and Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> turns out i have too many thoughts about mike and michael to keep it to just one fic huh!! get ready for lots more existentialism and feelings and tenderness and self-indulgence.
> 
> set immediately after chapter 4 of too like the lightning: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695330/

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He rolls onto his side to face you. “Do you think I can love people again, Mike? Do you think I have the capacity for it?”

Sleeping is hard.

You thought that sleep would come easily after such a day—hell, _true_ sleep would be a relief after the two-month half-sleep you’ve endured—but right now, your body seems to fight it off like it’s the grasping hands of death come to claim you once more. The covers of your bed are too _pressing,_ so you kick them off and sleep on top of them, feeling the air from your window on your bare feet, reminding you that there is a sky.

You don’t remember what it felt like, being dead. Being Buried. The last thing you remember is the woman at the door slamming your head into the wall, and then everything had slipped away, even the pain.

It’s impossible for you to tell how long you’d stayed like that. Maybe you’d dreamt, but they were dreams of a half-mind, and you are unable to recall them. Surely you had some sort of awareness down there—enough that you can recognize the pressure of your duvet as something distinctly _bad_ —enough that the sensation of crushing dirt comes back to you sometimes, throbbing in and out, too strong to be anything but a memory. It’s the haziness of being under general anaesthetic for too long—and, when you awake, the knowledge that something has been surgically removed from your body, except this time it’s not a tooth nor a tumor nor anything of the sort.

There’s never any question of where Michael will sleep. You don’t even discuss it. He lays down on your bed and you lay down on top of him and that is that. His chest rises and falls like he has to remind himself to breathe, but soon he settles into a rhythm. His eyes are closed and his hair is spread over the pillow like a golden halo. You gather some of it up in your hands and recall the fact that _soft_ and _smooth_ are textures that exist.

You think you sleep. Your mind begins to fixate on things that are just beyond your grasp, and it agitates you that you cannot tell what is going on. Irritating patterns form in your dreamscape.

You can’t run in your dreams. You can’t walk. Can’t move. Can’t scream. Trapped and paralyzed and blinded. By what?

When you come back to awareness of your room, your head is on the pillow an inch away from Michael’s. He’s looking at you. In the darkness you can only see an outline of his features.

“Bad dreams?” he murmurs.

“I don’t know,” you reply, truthfully. “You?”

“I can’t sleep,” he says. “I think I’ve forgotten how.”

“Did you sleep in the Distortion?”

“Oh, no. Not in the way you would conceptualize sleep.”

“Did you dream?”

“What is a dream when nothing is quite real? I’ve stalked the dreams of others. But I do not _dream._ I _am_ the dream.”

The presence of your body comes back to you somewhat—your still-aching legs, Michael’s hand on your back, his ribs against your chest. The chill of the open window. It calms you.

“Do you think we still need to sleep?” you ask.

“Are you tired?”

“I think so. Are you?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Did you really walk all the way from Great Yarmouth to Chichester?”

Michael laughs softly. “I never said I walked. Sometimes I took the train.”

“With what money?”

“Do I need money? I am very good at lying.”

“Of course you are.”

You try—earnestly try—to shut your eyes and let yourself fade out. Ever since you bound yourself to the Vast you’ve become better at this—at accepting the wide nothingness, opening your mind, letting thoughts rush by into the distance. But it’s not so simple anymore.

You sit up, and feel a rush of blood to your head as you do so.

“Clearly the sleeping thing isn’t working.”

Michael raises his arms above his head and stretches like a cat. “Hmm. What would we do instead?”

“Let’s take a walk.”

He follows you out of the room. You toss him a pair of socks, which he puts on before lacing up his own worn boots. The shoes and socks are too tight around your feet—too crushing, too warm—but you tell yourself that you’ll get used to it, that it’ll fade into a familiar sensation.

You slip out of the flat. You have never been more grateful for the wide and empty streets, the way that the moonlight and lamplight fall on everything, carving shapes out of the darkness. Nothing stirs at 2 AM. The distant sound of cars sounds like a muffled lapping of waves.

If you walked far enough you could get to the lake, and even farther you could get to the sea, and stare out into that expanse that seems to stretch forever. And get caught up in that foreverness until the present, clawing earth seems even more than a memory, and you lose yourself in the enormity of it all, and then maybe you will be able to sleep.

You don’t go down Lion Street, and you don’t pass the cathedral, but it’s impossible not to notice its tower rising in the distance. And you think about thresholds, if jumping through a window is the same as walking through a door.

And you think about Michael’s words—how you can walk yourself into becoming something new—and wish that maybe that would happen tonight. Except that this time you want to walk some more feeling into your stiff legs, and walk some more life into your being. Maybe you don’t want to _become._ You’ve had your becoming. You want to _return_ to when you reveled in the silence and the openness and the loneliness—but not loneliness in that you were cooped up in your own world, but that your world was too big for you to behold.

There’s no one in the park, of course. Your heart leaps as you take in the wide, open field. Could be bigger, yes. You wish it stretched to the horizon, wish it wasn’t enclosed by trees and fences and empty streets and dark houses. But here you are. A stretch of wonderful flat green. You can even forget that it’s a cricket field, forget that other people sometimes populate this area.

You keep walking until you’re standing right in the middle of the field. The sky is awash with stars, and you know that even more lie beyond the atmosphere, just out of sight. Maybe the Priory Park cricket field isn’t the center of the universe, but it sure as hell feels like it to you.

“Okay,” you say. “I think I feel better.”

“Does the Vast comfort you?”

“I don’t know that _comfort_ is the right word. But it feels _right,_ at least.”

Michael nods slowly. He’s taken one of your coats—thank god you’ve always been one for baggy clothing, or else it wouldn’t have fit him. He looks a bit strange in dark green. It’s strange in general to see him in muted, normal colors, ones that don’t hurt your brain. It makes him blend into the background more than it should.

“Do you think that anything would comfort _you?”_ you ask. “A hallway?”

He chuckles. “A hallway that is not part of _me?_ No, that would be so jarring, don’t you think? Like I have entered into another’s stomach.”

“What about a dream?”

“What sort of dream?”

“Any sort. Anything impossible like that.”

“Yes,” he says slowly. “I think that might be nice.”

You lay down in the grass. It’s cool, and tickles the back of your neck, but you don’t mind. It’s a light sensation, not a crushing one.

Michael lays down beside you and laces your fingers together. It’s an odd thing, having someone here to anchor you to the world. You think you like it.

You lay there for a long time. You’re not sure how long; you didn’t bring your phone. Long enough to watch a single cloud make its way across your vision, because your vision is only the sky right now.

“It’s funny,” says Michael. “Loving someone again. I never would have thought such a thing could happen.”

Your heart skips a beat.

“I do not like how hard it is to trust people,” he continues. “I wanted to, very badly. It was… instinct. From Michael Shelley. Young and naive. But a Distortion does not need a companion. A Distortion needs people to feed it. And a Distortion certainly does not need revenge. It is strange, how emotions twist when you are not human.”

“But you aren’t the Distortion anymore.”

“No.” He rolls onto his side to face you. “Do you think I can love people again, Mike? Do you think I have the capacity for it?”

“Of course,” you say, without knowing what else to.

“Maybe, since I am so small, it could be something more _real._ More intimate. But I could never love you like the Spiral did.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be loved like the Spiral loved me.”

“Because you always resisted its call.”

“Because I don’t think I want to conflate fear and desire in this instance.”

“What _do_ you want?”

It’s an awful question, because it requires an understanding of _you_ as an individual that you’re not sure you have right now, and an understanding of _desire,_ and that requires you to think about the future and how you would like it to all play out now that you are alive and _continuing._

“I don’t think that’s something I have the capacity to answer right now.”

“It can be anything.”

 _“Anything_ is too much. Ask me something. Something simple.”

He props himself up on his elbow and looks down at you. “Do you like it here?”

“Yes. It’s big. And quiet.”

“Can you name any of the constellations?”

You point straight upwards. “That’s the Big Dipper.”

“When do you want to return to your flat?”

“Not now. Later.”

“Can I stay here with you?”

“As long as you want.”

“Is it okay if I do this?”

He places his hands on either side of your head and leans over you, masses of curly hair spilling over his shoulders and onto your neck, your shirt, the grass beneath you. He smells like your shampoo. His face is so close—you can see the lines of veins in his blue eyes, each light hair in his eyebrow, more in detail than ever. There is no shifting here, no tricks of the light, no forms that are difficult to focus your gaze upon. There’s just a person with worry and longing etched across his face, and if he sees himself reflected in your eyes then it will be the same face hovering over you now. No distortion, no impossible figure smiling through a mirror, no dimensions unfurling in directions that do not exist. There is no more to him than what meets the eye.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking at you,” he says.

For some reason, all you can think of to say is, “Why?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“I suppose not.”

Michael raises one grass-stained hand to your face and brushes your bangs out of your eyes, traces a finger down your cheek. A soft static buzz rises in your brain at the touch. It occurs to you that he might, through you, be studying what it is like to have a body.

And then you can’t think anymore because he’s pressed his mouth against yours. He blocks out the sky with his face and his hair and his soft eyes with their long eyelashes and the way his curls fall across your forehead. You close your eyes and open your mouth and feel how warm his lips are, how his body presses down on you—but it’s okay because he’s _alive._ His heart beats rapidly and the pressure on your chest doesn’t choke you—he’s close because he _loves_ you. Not how the dirt loved you, loved you too much to let you go, too much to let you move or think or breathe. You can breathe. You can feel his breath. It’s warm and very real.

Michael kisses your chin, and your cheek, and your neck, and buries his face in your shoulder and holds you as tight as you can bear. He runs a finger along your collarbone, noting the ridges of your scar but not following its lines. You tangle your hands in his hair. It’s so soft and _clean,_ the opposite of the clawing earth; it flows like water through your fingers.

Your vision swims, and you tell yourself that you are _not_ about to start crying over how nice your lover’s hair is. This has been one hell of a day.

You manage to get out a wet laugh, feeling your throat vibrate under Michael’s palm. “You always made me see sparks whenever you kissed me before.”

He giggles, and props himself back up onto his elbows, face inches above your own. “Would you like to see some more sparks?”

“I think it was a Distortion thing. Always made me feel like I was hallucinating for a second.”

“Did you like it?”

“Honestly? Yes.”

He grins and gives you another peck on the lips.

“What about me?” you say.

“What about you?”

“Did I ever make your head swim?”

“With vertigo? Oh, yes, I’m sure. Once or twice. That’s an important part of joining yourself to an entity, you see—getting good at kissing.”

“I think we only ever kissed twice.”

“Three times, now.”

“Care to make that four?”

He grins, then rolls over onto his back, bringing you with him. In your surprise you collapse on top of him, and his laughter reverberates through your chest. He wraps his arms around your waist as you try to get into a more comfortable position, planting your knees at either side of his hips.

“I suppose I have one goal for the future now,” you say, looking down at him. His hair is splayed all over the ground again, beautifully chaotic. “Kiss Michael a lot more.”

It feels weird to say his name like that, especially considering it’s the same as your own, but your words provoke a smile from Michael so genuine that it melts your heart. He pulls you in for another long, deep kiss that makes your heart flutter and your cheeks grow warm. You keep your arms around his neck long after it’s done, resting your head just above his heart.

* * *

When you wake up it’s to the sound of a groundskeeper telling you off. Apparently the park is closed at night, it opens at 8:30, and the two of you should be ashamed of yourselves. He says something about “lack of respect” and a couple other things that are definitely homophobic, but you’re barely paying attention. Your mind feels sluggish and your limbs ache, but you feel surprisingly refreshed.

The only one who notices the sky open up and swallow the groundskeeper whole is Michael, who wakes in a daze moments after you do.

“Guess I still have a bit of the Vast in me,” you murmur, sliding off Michael’s chest and sitting up.

“Apparently so.” His voice is hoarse, but he gives you a lopsided grin. “Shall we get back to your flat? I didn’t think I’d be spending the night outside on the hard ground.”

You stand, albeit painfully, and help Michael to his feet.

“Did you have any dreams?” you ask as the two of you walk out of the park.

“Yes,” he replies, “and they were wonderful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've got the first few chapters of this written already! will post more sometime soon :0


	2. On Intimacy and Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I mean, probably. But you’re not the Distortion anymore.” It feels like you’ve repeated that phrase over and over and over. Not always sure if it’s meant to be a reassurance or a condolence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> really happy with how this scene turned out tbh aaaa

It’s also hard remembering how to be a human.

It’s like you’ve been sick for weeks on end, stuck in a feverish half-lucid state, and now that you’re well and your body is working again, it’s a stark reminder that you have to take care of yourself. Eating is the hardest part—your brain simply does not want to interpret the pangs of hunger for what they are, and you find yourself staring at even the simplest of meals, truly contemplating why you would want to chew this matter into pulp and use it to fill your stomach.

They say that the Vast despises the Flesh, and it’s true, it’s true.

Michael’s even worse. Before the cricket field, he hadn’t slept in all the time since he first awoke in this new (?) body. Hadn’t eaten either. It takes a while for those cravings to come back, especially when you’ve been a series of hallways for so long.

But they do, which is both a relief and a horror, because sustaining a body is a painful thing to do. At least meals are a way to demarcate the hours between sunrise and sunset.

Sleep is still sporadic. One night you sleep on the floor. (It’s horrible; the aches remind you of the ground, of your fragile body.) Michael takes the bed, and entangles himself so much in the covers that you’d think him a chrysalis.

So what do you do?

You eat and you sleep. And you walk, mostly late at night. Michael watches television for hours on end and seems to absorb about 5% of it. He takes a lot of naps, maybe trying to push his way back into the dream world, searching for a lack of grounding reality. You lay on the roof and try to read. You clean out the fridge. You vacuum the entire flat. You buy groceries. You try to be productive. You read all your emails, but don’t respond to any, because there’s something nice about everyone thinking you’re gone. About having no obligations until you choose to resurface.

And sometimes you’ll slip into the bedroom and turn the lights down low and Michael will climb on top of you and kiss you like he’s never tasted another person’s lips in his life. It’s during one of these half-real makeout sessions—because they’re never more than that, because Michael will always stop himself before he can take off more than your shirt, because at some point the intimacy becomes stifling and you realize that you don’t know how to deal with the fact that you have bodies—that Michael sits back on your thighs and warps his face into a lazy grin and poses his infuriating question again: “Do you love me, Michael Crew?”

Of course, it’s always the wrong questions at the wrong times with him, and right now—as you struggle to focus on more than the fact that his hot palm is pressed to your stomach, your whole body electrified by his touch—all you can think to say is “What?”

“I’m curious.” He absent-mindedly runs a finger down the inside of your leg, which does not help at all.

“Oh, come on. Not right now.”

“Yes right now.”

“You’re impossible.”

His grin widens. “If only.”

“Well, get off me first.”

He rolls off you and lays down next to you, his shoulder touching yours. Without the weight of his body between you and the room’s cool air, you feel suddenly very vulnerable.

“ _ I _ love you,” says Michael matter-of-factly. It’s the first time he’s really said it like that—so straightforward—and for a moment your heart stops. It’s out of character, at least for the person who he used to be. Maybe that makes it all the more meaningful.

It’s so—strange. To be wanted, to be loved. That someone would wake up from death and travel for what, 6 hours straight (by train, at least), to find your corpse and rescue you from your own certain demise. And years after you’d last seen each other, too—he remembered. That you would mean that much to someone, when really you’re no more than a blip in the universe, a speck in the sky.

But if the chance of getting struck by lightning in your lifetime is one in a couple thousand, surely the chance of being singled out, meeting someone who cares this much about you, is far better.

“Why?” you ask, like an idiot.

“Oh, I have absolutely no idea.” He chuckles, kisses your bare shoulder. “The easy answer would be to just regurgitate whatever I said about the Spiral and the Vast, wouldn’t it? But I didn’t pull you out of the mouth of the Choking Earth just because you were touched by the Twisting Deceit, did I?”

“I don’t like how honest you’re being.”

“Would you rather I turn back into a creature of deception?”

“I thought you wanted to be the Distortion again.”

“Oh, believe me, I do. But there’s so much more to the Distortion than lies, don’t you think? Besides, I don’t  _ want _ to lie to you. There’s no point.”

You nod.

Michael waits patiently, his unanswered question still hanging in the air.

What you really want to do is to pull him towards you and make out with him some more, because that would be the easy option. And being Buried for months does leave you extraordinarily touch-starved, which is not something you’d ever considered yourself being until now. But all that’s just avoidance.

“I—I know that I  _ need _ you,” you say slowly, gaze resting somewhere on the ceiling. The breeze from the window is getting to you; you either need to put on a shirt or get Michael to lay on top of you again. “And that, well, that means exactly what you think it means. I need you to help me get through this… whatever it is. Because we’re in the same boat. And for some reason I can’t quite fathom learning how to live again but doing it all on my own. No, really. Because, you know. I usually do things on my own. That’s just how I am. But now, I need you to be here.”

He pats you on the arm, smiling. “Yeah. I think I need you too.”

“But… love.”

“Love!”

“Is there something you  _ want _ me to say here? Am I going to disappoint you if I say that—like, if I say  _ I don’t know _ again.”

He shrugs.

“Then I still don’t know.”

“Why not?”

You sigh. “It seems like such a big thing.”

“You love big things.”

“Not like that. Like telling you I love you is some sorta commitment. Or maybe an admission of… I don’t know what. Defeat?”

Michael cackles. “Defeat?”

“No! No, that was—never mind. Forget I said that. Or just… can I really say I love you if I don’t quite know what love is?”

It sounds so silly, so trite. Michael snorts.

“Can’t it be whatever you want it to be?”

“I’d love to live in your world where things are so malleable.”

Michael sits up, resting on his elbow. “We  _ are _ in that world. It  _ is _ malleable. It only has to be real for the two of us. Romance is pretend, after all.”

You open your mouth, but any sound you might have made dies in your throat. It’s been strange, too, not living alone. Having another presence in your flat, especially when before, Michael’s visits had always been characterized by their impermanence. Just passing through. Walk in through a door, engage you in a spiralling conversation, walk out through a door. It goes against both of your natures to assume he’s here to stay. And yet the future beyond tomorrow is a blur because you have no plans, nothing to look forward to, nothing to anxiously await. Maybe the Unknowing. But you’re fairly certain that won’t be going anywhere.

“I think,” you eventually say, “that I  _ do _ love you, Michael, but—no, listen—but that’s… that’s not a promise. I mean—” You sigh, rub your eyes. “I’ve never been very good at explaining myself, have I? I just don’t know what I want anymore. You have to work with me on this one.”

Michael nods, so very softly, more understanding in his eyes than you would have thought possible. “Yes, I know exactly how that feels.” He presses his lips to your cheek, his laughter thrumming through your body. “Isn’t it ludicrous that  _ I’d _ be the one to seek after such clarity?”

“Not at all. In times like these we all need some clarity to hold onto.”

“But shouldn’t I be revelling in the uncertainty more than I am?”

“I mean, probably. But you’re not the Distortion anymore.” It feels like you’ve repeated that phrase over and over and over. Not always sure if it’s meant to be a reassurance or a condolence. “No longer a  _ creature of deception, _ hmm?”

Your words are met with an unexpected silence. You get it. It’s hard to have these conversations when Michael’s feelings on the Spiral seem to change on the flip of a dime—which is a very Spirally thing to do, you think.

“Hmm,” he says suddenly.

“Yes?”

“I was so very naive, you know.”

“Michael Shelley was?”

“ _ I _ was.”

“Y-yeah, it seems like that.”

“And,” he continues, pointedly, “I do not like to remember that time, because every time I do I keep second-guessing it. It was all built on lies, all of it. Trapped in Emma Harvey’s spiderweb.” He giggles. “And it felt so right to distort the truth for others! A kind of revenge, even! But now there’s no joy in that, none at all.”

Even now it’s hard to parse his twisting words. You sit up, a sudden chill flowing through you. “Are you—you know that  _ I’m _ not lying to you, right??”

“Sure,” he says, entirely too casually, “but Getrude Robinson told me that she cared about me, and she fed me to It Is Not What It Is, and so how can I trust people like that anymore?”

“You said it was instinct.”

“Instinct that destroyed me. Him. I don’t know. I want to. I want to very badly, Mike. I want to  _ open— _ I want everything to open, I want all the doors in the world to open up and show me the rooms inside, all the flowers to open and display their brilliant petals. I want to trust you, and I want you to trust me. Maybe that’s it—not even  _ love. _ Just trust. Like there never were any lies. Like the only lie was reality. Like nothing was hidden. I don’t want to  _ hide _ things—I never wanted to hide things; I am not the Stranger, I am the Spiral and I twist and I change and I distort and I transform, but I do not hide. Stories are lies and dreams are lies but they are the good kinds of lies, and maybe love is a lie too, and language, and consciousness, but—do you see what I mean? Do you see the difference?”

You listen to the poetry that flows from Michael’s mouth and nod mutely. Still trying to figure out what he’s saying. It’s hard to catch up, sometimes.

“Do I contradict myself?” he says, and grins.  _ “Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes. _ Or—or, I did, once upon a time.”

All of a sudden he looks so profoundly sad. And so very human. Sitting there with his hair tucked behind his ear, the top few buttons of his shirt (your shirt) messily undone, his slender hands with their normal-length fingers curled in his lap, eyes focusing and unfocusing. It occurs to you that you’re not sure what time it is, but it’s night, so time is basically meaningless anyway.

“For what it’s worth,” you hear yourself start to tell him—and then pause, because you don’t want to lie. You’re no good at lying anyway.

“Yes?” His voice is hollow like a drum, like a musical instrument.

“I do trust you.” You force yourself to omit  _ I think _ from the end of that sentence. You do trust him. You do. It’s true. “I mean, I didn’t. I definitely didn’t trust the Distortion, as much as I liked…”

…Liked  _ you? _ Him? Them? It? You stop, though Michael seems to understand what you mean, what the problem is. His lips are pressed together, a thin pink line on his face.

“Or,” you continue, with the energy of a car sputtering to life, “rather. Maybe I did trust… you. By the end. It’s not something I ever really thought about?”

He laughs. “I don’t blame you.”

You don’t ask whether or not he trusts you. You know what the answer is.  _ Yes, almost, but it’s hard. _

You’re not touching anymore, but Michael’s gaze has so much weight to it that you may as well be. He has the look of someone poised at the edge of a precipice. Which is a funny metaphor, you realize, because you’ve been at the edge of many precipices and all you’ve felt was exhilaration.

“What,” begins Michael, and doesn’t finish his question.

You feel like he’s about to launch into another philosophical quandary, but when he says “What if we took another shower together?” you actually snort.

“Come again?”

He looks offended, which doesn’t necessarily mix well with the trepidation on his face. “Is it such an egregious request? Don’t humans have to clean themselves?”

“You know, if you wanted to get naked with me, you can just ask.”

Michael flushes beet red, but his expression doesn’t change. “Maybe I do.”

You weren’t really sure if you were joking, but he is most certainly not. His face has morphed into a look of determination, and you feel your own cheeks grow warm. The fact that you’re not wearing a shirt is all too apparent.

No, actually, you know what? You weren’t joking. You consider what Michael said about  _ trust, _ about being open. Maybe this kind of vulnerability is the logical extension of that.

“Okay,” you say. It comes out softer than you meant it to, but that just makes it feel more intimate. “Yeah.” And you reach out and start unbuttoning his shirt.

It’s very quiet as you do so. Michael sits perfectly still, and all you can hear are his shallow breaths. His hair comes loose from its position behind his ear, falls down onto his chest, brushes against your hands.

“Maybe,” whispers Michael, “I can feel like… I have a body? N-no, like, like my body is something I  _ want _ to have. You know?”

You nod, undo the last button, and he shrugs off his shirt and discards it onto the floor. He’s shivering slightly; the tiny white hairs all over his torso prick up. Maybe you should close the window, but you don’t want to get up, don’t want to take your eyes off your partner.

The strangest thing is that it doesn’t feel sexual at all—even as you help him pull off his shorts and everything else, and he does the same for you, his fingers lingering on your hips where the lines of your scar end, looking and feeling without ever prying. Some part of you really wants to believe it  _ should, _ like you should be as turned on as you were earlier. But no. The tone isn’t right.

It makes you wonder if you ever could have had a moment like this with Michael the Distortion. Would he have been able to let his guard down? Maybe, for you. For the sake of kickstarting a philosophical discussion on love and power and the liminal nature of his own body. Plus, you absolutely would’ve fucked him if the opportunity came up; there’s little question about that. (You almost regret that you never did, because if just kissing him made you see sparks—well, you’re not going to think about that right now.)

For the first time, you allow yourself to really  _ look _ at Michael, all the awkwardness of the scene in the shower stripped away like your clothing. Again, he feels  _ smaller, _ which is technically not saying much because he’s still taller than you. His skin clings to his bones around his knees, ankles, elbows; he doesn’t have much muscle, not that you’d expect him to. He’s got a scar on his hip that looks like the kind you get in your childhood from falling too hard into the sharp edge of a table. The soles of his feet are red and bruised, but not badly so. Maybe he really  _ did _ walk all the way from Great Yarmouth to Chichester. Maybe he got frostbite on the way up to Sannikov Land.

And he looks at you too. At the scar from the bullethole the detective made. At the slight misalignment of your ribs, the bones in your left arm, remnants of what you tried to do to yourself with the  _ Boneturner’s Tale. _ And of course he can never take his eyes off the branching Lichtenberg figure that covers your whole back, your chest, parts of your arm.

You place a hand on the small of his back and draw him in slowly, tilt your head, kiss him gently. His eyelids flutter closed, and he leans into you. Very soft, very intimate.

“Where was your body while you were the Distortion?” you whisper, pulling away.

He shrugs.

“Does it feel the same as you left it?”

“I truly have no idea.”

You put your other hand on his knee. It’s cold. Everything about him is cold, everything except his hands and his face and his lips.

“Should I close the window?”

His eyes flick towards the window, the dark night outside. “No, it’s, it’s fine. We can…”

He pulls back the covers and slides underneath them. You  _ almost _ don’t follow him, remembering the crushing weight of the duvet, soft and too-comforting like a blanket of dirt. But—no, it’ll be okay. It’s been days since you were underground. The air has seeped back into your skin; your lungs are free.

You slip into bed beside Michael, and let out a surprised breath when he wraps his freezing arms around you—whether from the temperature or the contact you’re not sure. His ribs press against yours; your bodies click into place, all tangled up. You drape one arm around his neck, letting your fingers dip into the stream of his golden hair. Thank god you’re shorter than him, else his cold feet would be bumping into your legs. A lock of his hair falls into your face and you stifle a sneeze.

His heart is beating so very fast despite his stillness—like he’s a hovering hummingbird, using all his energy to stay aloft. You breathe in deep, exhale, savoring the feeling of clear lungs. He begins to fall into your rhythm, and gradually his heartbeat slows and the tension in his limbs lessens.

“How does this feel?” you ask softly.

“I love you,” says Michael.

Your breath catches in your throat.

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

You stay there for a while. Until your body heat reaches an equilibrium, until Michael stops shivering, even a little bit. It’s still wild—the fact that there’s nothing between you, just skin against skin, and it’s not weird. Perhaps the strangest thing is the fact that you are both servants of Fear, have killed people, have thrust others into domains of pure terror, and yet you’re not going to hurt each other. Not even at your most vulnerable.

Michael’s hair falls across his face like a diagonal waterfall, but he doesn’t move to brush it away—that would mean moving his hands, which he’s currently using to trace circles on your back. He hasn’t followed the lines of your scar once tonight—he’s done it so many times by now that he must have them all memorized. Or maybe that urge is fading along with all the other Distortion instincts.

“Maybe I don’t mind having a body,” he whispers, “if I get to share it with you.”

“Really?”

“I liked being unknowable. But I also like this. It’s equal this way, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. That’s true.” You shift your position a little, twirl a lock of his hair around your finger. “It’s… hmm. You know what’s strange? I never really liked being… how would you put it. Being… close? No, it’s like, it’s the feeling of when you’re alone with someone, and they look at you like you’re the only thing in the world. Would always make me uncomfortable, because the world’s so big, and I’m, well, I’m not. I’m not special.” Well, maybe  _ special _ enough to be struck by lightning. To be shot and buried and come back to life, or maybe never die at all. “Lost a lot of boyfriends that way, not that I ever had many in the first place. But this is okay. This feels… comfy.”

“Yes,” murmurs Michael, and touches his forehead against yours.

You wonder if he ever  _ did _ feel special, then realize that if he had, it was likely for reasons that haunted him—touched by the Spiral, singled out by Gertrude Robinson, single-handedly transformed the Distortion. Served as the right hand of the Twisting Deceit. Maybe it’s nice to be able to forget himself, lose himself in you.

But Michael’s eyelids are drooping, and his breaths are long and steady, and you’ve already poured out enough of your hearts for tonight.

You don’t dream about skies or graves or fractals. You dream about little things, like the smell of the grass in the park, like your trip to the grocery store, like Michael’s hair.

Maybe this is how you become human. Maybe you can do this together.


	3. On Fear and Possibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And for these things I love the Spiral, and I still yearn for it, and I would throw myself back into that unknowable state in a heartbeat, but…"
> 
> He stops, and closes his eyes. You lie beside him, listening.
> 
> "I suppose that is what it always comes back to. The Distortion. Would I want to be the Distortion again."

As unconsciousness wears off little by little, the first thing that breaches into your awareness is a chill on your foot. Somehow, during the night, the covers shifted such that your right foot became exposed, subject to the breeze from the window. As you pull it back under the duvet, you wake up enough for the full reality of your situation to return to you. Michael’s left arm is slung across your chest, his other hand trapped underneath your thigh. At first, these points of contact blended in with the rest of the sensations around you—like extensions of your own body, like clothing made to fit you, like weights that have never been absent—but as soon as you recognize them, they seem to burn into your skin, leaving a permanent mark. Each of his touches is crystal clear—the way his knuckles press into your leg, his fingers curl loosely around your side, their contours perfectly visible in your mind’s eye.

It finally hits you that you and Michael are  _ definitely _ naked in bed together, and at the realization you feel a blush spread across your face and down the rest of your body, along with a mild panic. Okay—okay, nothing really  _ happened; _ you just kissed a bit and talked a lot and cuddled a shit ton (the entire night) and it was… it was really good.

Michael is laying on his back, head turned to the side, facing you. Fast asleep. Nose inches from yours. His faint breath tickles your chin. His hair, it seems, is everywhere, cascading across the pillow, down his shoulders and back. He looks so peaceful. You take in the curve of his face, his perfectly triangular nose, the pink tinge of his cheeks and his lips, the way his eyebrows are so light they almost seem to disappear into his skin. The lock of hair that falls past his eyelids. The gentle slope of his arm, three freckles on his white shoulder. He is, without a doubt, the most beautiful person you have ever laid eyes on. At least, that’s the thought that drifts into your sluggish morning brain.

“Hey,” you whisper. No response.

Your heart is beating very very fast, and you’re only half sure why. You don’t want to leave Michael’s embrace, but the weight of the covers is becoming oppressive, and your body is burning up. You extricate yourself from his grasp as carefully as possible, then sigh in relief when he doesn’t react more than letting out a breath.

For some reason your next thought is that you have to get out of this room. Because it’s simultaneously too cold and too hot. Because looking at Michael is making you feel too many things. Because if he wakes up you’ll have to talk with him—you’ll have to digest the events of last night. You’ll have to admit it was real.

As quietly as possible, you open your drawers and grab a fresh change of clothes, then slip out of the room and head into the bathroom. The first thing you do is wash your face, lathering on too much soap as you stare at your own reflection, with its bedhead, wide eyes, crimson cheeks. You change quickly, but can’t help passing your fingers over the spots on your body that Michael was touching.

You love him, you love him, of course you do; how could you have ever said anything else? Because you’re afraid? You spend a little too long trying to decide which entity presides over that particular type of fear, and can come up with nothing. No, you can’t describe it even to yourself enough to classify it like that. Maybe Beholding. Fear of being  _ known. _ Or Stranger. Fear of things not being as they seem. Or—and this makes you chuckle—even Spiral. Fear that your mind is lying to you about your emotions.

Another checkup on Michael reveals that he is still asleep. With no one to hold, his arms flop out in front of him, laying perpendicular to his body.

You sigh. Your heart rate hasn’t gone down.

You need to… you need to take a walk. Right now. Before Real Life gets too much for you.

The drawers don’t make too much noise as you pick out some clean clothes for Michael as well. You leave them at the end of the bed, then rifle through your desk, eventually producing a pen and an index card.

Michael snorts in his sleep, and you jump.

_ Off to the store. Back soon, _ you scrawl on the card, then draw a tiny heart at the end like a punctuation mark. God, that’s sappy. You slip the card into Michael’s open palm, and exit the room swiftly and silently.

You grab your keys and your wallet, tie up your shoes (while your eyes rest on Michael’s old boots, warm and worn—and his dirty coat, with its fur lining, its multitude of pockets, the tears that expose its feathery insulation), and get out of the flat.

When you’re out of the building and into the street—when you can see the morning sky, when it welcomes you with its cheery blue and washes of orange—you breathe a sigh of relief.

Okay, you said you were going to the store. Which store? You could pop by Tesco again, but you just went grocery shopping. Maybe the bank, but you don’t exactly feel like dealing with money. (Which begs the question of whether or not Simon is still sending you cash. And whether or not he knows you were gone in the first place.)

You decide on two destinations—the pharmacy and the bakery. Pharmacy is just convenient. You grab some ibuprofen (always good to have), a refill of your meds, and more soap than you probably need. Remembering Michael’s bruised feet, you pick up some bandages and lotion. A pack of condoms, which makes you feel extremely silly and self-conscious, but, well, better to just have them around. Pepto-bismol, because eating is hard. Toilet paper. Disinfectant. Wet wipes. And finally, two bags of candy—one of maltesers and one of the brightest colored gummy worms you can find in the store.

The bakery is mostly empty—it looks like most regulars have already gotten their breakfasts. There’s a man in here that you think went to your college, but if he sees you he doesn’t say anything. Still, it makes your stomach clench for a moment. You’ve been trying to avoid people who knew you before. Before you were shot. Before you had to restart your life.

You pick out a muffin for yourself and an apple turnover for Michael, thank the cashier, and leave.

You’re not sure how long it’s been since you left. At least half an hour? You didn’t bring your phone and you don’t have a watch. Have you been out long enough that Michael will be awake by the time you return? There’s really no telling with him; neither of you has a consistent sleep schedule. Plus, you aren’t sure whether you’d rather go back and find he’s still snoozing, or go back and find that he’s woken up.

What are you so afraid of? Nothing rational. (There’s some sick joke to be made here about  _ falling _ in love.) You’ve already woken up next to him a half dozen times, what’s one time more? What’s ten times more? Are you scared it’ll bleed into infinity? No, you aren’t  _ scared _ of infinity. But you have the rest of your life ahead of you—full of wide open space, completely blank, an untouched sky waiting to be traversed—and while that once might have excited you, now you can feel nothing but numbness.

Or is it that Michael feels like a fixed point in your sprawling future? A factor you can’t get rid of, can’t shake. He immediately went to find you after he was reborn, and that counts for something. You have an obligation to him, and he’s not ready to go out on his own, so… here you are. Together. Like you said, you  _ need _ him.

It doesn’t help that every new romantic gesture pushes you closer to the prospect of becoming Real Boyfriends, whatever the fuck that means. And sure, once upon a time you would have been happy to have a fling with the Distortion. Some sort of casual relationship. But it can’t quite be casual anymore, can it?

Scenes from last night bubble up through your mind, cast in another light. Michael’s gentle hands on your waist, tugging at the hem of your jeans, the way you rested your palm on the inside of his thigh, how he sucked in a breath when you touched his chest, acutely aware of real skin on real skin. Maybe that’s why his touch felt so weighty this morning. Neither of you are used to the sensation.

You actually have to stop and lean against a tree for a second, because it’s all too much. The fear, the longing, the inexplicable shame at your own sexual attraction, which seems to come from absolutely nowhere. The fact that there is a future and you will be expected to participate in it, sometime or another.

No, no, this is so stupid. There’s nothing sinister waiting for you back at the flat, no crazed detective ready to beat you up, no ever-watching Archivist, no crushing earth. Just your lover with his smooth skin and long curls and excited eyes.

You eat your muffin on the way back to the flat. It’s blueberry flavored.

When you return, setting the box from the bakery and the plastic bag from the pharmacy on the counter, Michael is still in your room. He’s awake, still completely naked, sitting cross-legged in your bed and thumbing through one of the books on your desk.  _ Monster Theory, _ edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Something you read for a college course years ago and never put back on your shelf. Your heart does a somersault at the sight of him—the surreal intimacy of last night is gone; you’re definitely a bit turned on. His hair falls in ringlets down his bare chest, pooling onto the pages of the book.

“Hi,” you say softly.

Michael looks up, and a small, warm smile appears on his lips. “I got your note.”

“…Do you want breakfast?”

He shrugs.

“I left you some clothes,” you try, knowing full well he absolutely would have seen them.

“Right.” He dog-ears the book and puts it down, then pulls the pile towards him, inspecting it with the air of someone who’s finally decided to do something on which they’ve been procrastinating. It’s some more shorts (none of your other pants fit him) and a checked shirt colored a dull pink and mauve. If it were brighter, it would remind you of the sort of thing he wore as the Distortion.

There is, you have to say, something very hot about the fact that he’s been wearing nothing but your clothes. Obviously you’ll have to buy some more for him sometime, when he feels like leaving the house for more than a walk.

You just sort of stand and watch as Michael pulls on his (your) underwear—which you realize a second too late is a horribly awkward thing to do. You make to leave, but his call of “Where are you going?” makes you stop and turn around. He sits in the middle of the bed, shorts held loosely in his hand, eyes bright and wide.

“Hmm?”

“Come here?” He drops the pants and opens his arms slightly, as if asking for a hug.

Okay. You think you can indulge him.

You climb onto the bed and into Michael’s lap. He wraps his arms around you almost immediately and squeezes tight, burying his face in your neck. He has to bend down a little; even when seated, he’s taller. His embrace is protective, drawing you into him, so close you can smell his hair as it brushes against your cheek.

“What’s with all the affection?” you whisper.

“I have no idea,” Michael murmurs into your shoulder. You place your hands on his back, feel goosebumps there. “It just feels right.”

It’s like time has stopped. Your heartbeat slows, falls into sync with Michael’s. He breathes deeply. Calmly. His fingers dig into your shirt, closing around the folds in the fabric.

“I think,” he says, “that Michael Shelley was a very affectionate person. For better or for worse.”

“Was the Distortion?”

“I’m not sure if  _ affection _ meant the same thing to the Distortion as it does to you.”

You chuckle. “I always got the sense that h—that you were messing with me.”

“Oh, I absolutely was. Which isn’t to say I didn’t like you, of course. Or that I wasn’t being affectionate.”

“In your own way.”

“Yes!”

“Affection through aggressive philosophy?”

He smiles into your neck. “Absolutely.”

Michael releases his grip on your shirt and starts to slowly stroke his hands up and down your back, angling his fingers inwards like he’s gently scratching an itch. Despite everything, the gesture still puzzles you—not that he needs any  _ reason _ to be touchy-feely. Maybe it’s just the fact that he seemed to know exactly what you wanted at that moment—to be hugged. Is that uncanny? Why does it matter? Why does a touch mean so much?

All of a sudden, without warning or prompting, an answer to your earlier question clicks into place inside your brain.

“It’s the Flesh,” you say quietly. “It’s fear of the Flesh. Of course that’s what it is. That’s the domain this falls under. It’s because the Flesh is so grounded, rooted in our own bodies and meat and organs—it’s all  _ about _ reality. The Vast, the Spiral—they’re about losing yourself, whatever that means. Losing yourself in the sky, in a universe that doesn’t care about you. Losing yourself in a hallway, in an impossible landscape, in your own mind. But the Flesh wants you to  _ feel _ it. To know yourself. To know that all you are is packed into this little physical form that squishes and oozes and breaks. It’s like—mind over matter and all that.”

Michael pulls back, moving his arms so he can cup your face in his hands. He’s beaming with a sort of amused pride. He gives you a big, passionate kiss on the lips—leaving you dizzy, despite its brevity—and giggles when your cheeks redden.

“Oh, my dear Michael Crew,” he says. “Thank you for providing me with another opportunity to flaunt my philosophy degree. You see, whether purposefully or not, you seem to be advocating mind-body dualism—and that is something to seriously think about before you continue your comparison. Do you think that consciousness is separate from the physical brain? Can it exist without it? Could the mind Spiral into madness without Flesh to support that mind?”

You grin in spite of yourself. “That isn’t what I’m talking about at all. I  _ know _ that the brain is the seat of consciousness or whatever. I’m talking about fear.”

“Does fear not manifest itself both physically and mentally? And vertigo is in your inner ear.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But I—” You stop, narrow your eyes. “Hold on. This is actually bullshit. Of course consciousness isn’t in the body. You were a  _ hallway _ for  _ seven years, _ for god’s sake. Don’t pretend that the mind can’t exist without the brain.”

He shrugs. “I never said that dualism was incorrect. I’m just giving you interesting things to consider. Besides, what  _ is _ a brain? A billion branching connections? Could a series of hallways constitute a brain?”

“I think you’re unnecessarily convoluting this whole discussion.”

“It’s what I do!” he crows.

“I was  _ trying _ to say something about… touch. The vulnerability of sharing your body with another person, the difficulty of wanting to have a body in the first place.”

Michael purses his lips, nods. “Yes. I was… too excited about  _ aggressive philosophy. _ But you are right. That particular fear could very well belong to the Flesh.” He laughs suddenly. “Am I feeding the Flesh now? It’s terrifying to consider I could inadvertently be helping an entity other than the Spiral.”

“Maybe a bit. I don’t know.  _ Are _ you still feeding the Spiral?”

Michael cocks his head, thinking. The amusement has sloughed off his face, leaving it perfectly neutral. After a second, he lays backwards, head falling against the pillow. You stay seated on his hips, at least until he rolls onto his side, and you’re forced to move out of his lap.

“I have no idea,” he says after a moment. “I am still  _ aligned _ with it. But could I call myself a true avatar? I don’t fear unreality, and I don’t suppose I  _ generate _ fear of it either. I feel… very human.”

You absent-mindedly reach out and rub your thumb up and down Michael’s bare leg. A chill has settled within you at his words. You can still call upon the Vast, but—it feels different, now. More distant. “Yeah.”

“Do you think that’s unsustainable? Being filled with love for one’s patron but only out of… hm. Necessity? No, not quite. Out of longing for the comfort of the past. The  _ power _ of an avatar. And no way to express it.”

“I don’t think it’s just because we’re  _ nostalgic _ or something. I really do take comfort in wide open spaces, and you love your dreams and your stories and your twisting conversations. That’s just part of who we are now. Or who we always were. You don’t have to serve a patron to love it.”

Michael weaves a lock of hair through his fingers, staring at a point somewhere on the opposite side of the bed. When he speaks, his voice is little more than a breath. “ _ Do _ I love it?”

“Didn’t you just say you did?”

“I—I do, I do. But—I don’t know. I don’t like lies. Not anymore. Then again—I can’t decide if that’s the domain of the Stranger, to  _ hide _ truth, or… or. No. Distort truth. That’s what I did, what Gertrude did. And yet… I just… I don’t hate what I was. I joy in the impossible. In unreal geometry, in architecture that makes no sense. In fractals. In patterns. In liminal spaces. In the realms  _ between. _ In confusion and in halves and hybrids, dreams and stories and fiction, and the delightful quandaries of personhood and monstrosity and the mind and madness. And for these things I love the Spiral, and I still yearn for it, and I would throw myself back into that unknowable state in a heartbeat, but…”

He stops, and closes his eyes. You lie beside him, listening.

“I suppose that is what it always comes back to. The Distortion. Would I want to be the Distortion again.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know.”

And just yesterday, he was so sure that he did. “That’s okay. You don’t have to know.”

He laughs. “Of course not. If I was certain one way or another I wouldn’t be a very good Spiral being, would I? But I feel like… ah, this is so silly, but… I don’t want to lose myself. This version of myself, that is. I don’t want to become something new again.”

He takes in a shuddering breath, and arches his back, curling himself up a little tighter.

“I understand.”

You don’t offer your own selfish opinion—that it’s nice to be in the same weird human boat. That you like this version of him too, and would be sad to see it go. That you want to explore bodies with him, brave the weird domain of Flesh, exist on the same level of reality.

“Being the Distortion was painful in more ways than one,” he whispers. “But there was so much about it that was incomparable to anything else. Sublime, almost. All I’ve said about the wonders of It Is Not What It Is. Even if my purpose was futile. Even if I was ultimately  _ pointless. _ Even if I hated myself and my failure. And still do hate myself! For falling into a very obvious trap, destroying myself so easily, being reduced to something even more futile and pointless.”

Michael begins to shake, and the dread that’s been pooling in your stomach morphs into a weight the size of a bowling ball. You instinctively grab both of his hands and squeeze them as hard as you can until he drags his gaze upwards to meet your eyes.

“No, we are not doing the self-hatred thing again, okay? No more ruminating on your own pointlessness. Nihilism is all fine and dandy but this is not healthy. You’re not going to become the Distortion again, and you can’t undo something that happened in the past, whether it’s a week ago or a decade ago, so…” You sigh, scoot closer to him. “I’m sorry for asking in the first place.”

His laugh this time is shallow and watery. “But what if I  _ could _ become the Distortion again?”

“Let’s—let’s not focus on what-ifs.”

“I could find Helen’s door.” He grins with a quiet, manic energy you don’t like at all. “I could go through it.”

“But you said you don’t want to become someth—”

He continues like he didn’t hear you. “And I could wander, and revel in the impossibility of my journey. Slowly make the walls feel like home again. I think I remember my way to the center, but… but I don’t suppose I have the map anymore…”

Michael stops, and his eyes go very wide.

He sits bolt upright, dropping your hands. Before you can do anything, he leaps off the bed and bounds out of the room.

The revelation hits you a second too late. You dash after him, the ice-cold fear inside you making your heart shiver violently. When you reach the front room, Michael is standing by the coat rack, frantically rifling through the pockets of his old jacket.

“Michael!” It comes out as a shout.

He doesn’t look at you. With trembling hands, he produces a scrap of paper from one of the inner pockets. As he unfolds it, holding it up in front of you, his face splits into the most horrible smile.

The… the  _ thing _ he is holding makes absolutely no sense. It is a scribble, a chaos of multicolored lines and loops and points and shapes, like something a toddler would draw with a pack of crayons on the back of a restaurant menu. And yet something about it makes your eyes hurt, like the figures are about to leap off the page and bite you, like it might be about to resolve itself into something… else. It feels wrong. It feels  _ evil. _

“Found it,” he whispers.

You avert your eyes, but the patterns have already burned themselves into your brain. “That’s—put it away, please.”

“No, I don’t think I will.”

“Then at least turn it around so I don’t have to look at it.”

He folds it in half, gripping the yellowing paper too tightly. “Does it make you feel like you’re going mad?”

“Yes! It does!”

“Good.”

“No, it’s not  _ good, _ Michael, it’s—” You step forward and try to grab it from him, but he dances away.

“This is the Distortion! This is everything that I was. You aren’t going to take that away from me.”

“It’s already been taken away from you!”

“I could go back,” he says. Still shaking like he’s just climbed out of a frigid pool.

“You don’t even know if that map will work anymore.”

“I’ll improvise. I know my way around.”

“How would you find a door in the first place?”

“If the Vast answered your call, the Spiral will answer mine.” He sounds so sure, despite the way his voice wavers.

“Tell me you’re not seriously considering this.”

“It’s a possibility!”

You take another step towards him, and he jumps back, colliding with the coat rack. Your mind is a blur, filled to the brim with static. You can’t believe this is happening. “Just because there’s an opportunity doesn’t mean you have to take it.”

“No. But I could. It would be easy!” His speech devolves into a chorus of disturbing giggles. “It’s like letting yourself fall.”

You’re suddenly struck by the oddity of the scenario—it’s barely lunchtime, Michael is still in his underwear, and you’re fighting over a piece of paper with a scribble on it—and suppress a laugh. “What happened to holding onto this version of yourself?”

He falters, tripping over his feet and his words. “I—”

“Yes! You don’t want this!”

“Who are you to tell me what  _ I _ want?”

“I’m sorry, Michael, but you’ve told me time and time again about the pain of transformation, the impossibility of love as a Distortion, and I just have a hard time believing that—”

“And I’ve told you the pain of being so small and fragile and fleshy and alone! With a body squished into three dimensions, that conspires to destroy itself, feeding on meaningless matter, confining me into a certain finite amount of space. I can’t twist or distort myself, can’t exist beyond my body, can’t reshape it whenever I see fit—it’s claustrophobic. And I know you know too much about claustrophobia.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Is it not? Trapped in another entity’s domain? Buried and Flesh? Your analysis was excellent, by the way. I don’t want to feed the Flesh. I don’t want to be  _ meat.” _

“Look, sometimes that fear is just something you have to live with—”

Another fit of laughter escapes his lips as he stares down at you. His height, in this close range, in such a tense situation, is now more than a little intimidating. “Live with? For how long? Until I fully  _ become _ Michael Shelley again? What, a pathetic human? Just give up,  _ assimilate, _ blend into the mundane and hope that someday I might achieve that kind of everyday normality?  _ Reality?” _

“I thought that was the goal.”

“What, assimilation?” He cackles, then resumes his speech before you can get any words in, his voice full and loud and still tinged with that amused lilt. “Should I  _ try _ to lose my liminal identity? I thought you would understand that the final goal is not always to become more human. That humanity has no special, inherent traits of  _ goodness _ or  _ badness, _ and that there is nothing wrong with being a monster.”

“No! Of course I know that. I mean that we need to try to figure this out together. Figure out how to live in the world in a way that works for us.”

“For how long?”

That shuts you up. Your fear from earlier creeps through you—the inability to imagine the future. Michael continues, unabated.

“I am transitory. I twist and I change. Nothing is forever.”

“But it doesn’t have to end  _ now _ —”

“Think about the big picture—”

“Don’t try to talk to me about the  _ big picture.” _

“Why not? Too Vast for you?”

You run your fingers through your hair. Blood pounds in your ears, drowning out your thoughts. “This is—this is insane. I  _ thought _ everything was starting to get better. You were getting used to having a body. Being, well, being you. Having the capacity for love! Remember that?”

Michael sucks in a big breath, but doesn’t speak. He’s pressed against the wall in a sort of defensive position, wide-eyed. “I still love you. Don’t think that because I want to—want—don’t think that I don’t still love you.”

You bite your tongue and force yourself to not say anything along the lines of  _ well, you sure aren’t acting like it, _ because that would be so cruel. And so untrue.

“I just,” you begin, “I just… want to think this through, okay? If you don’t want to stay in my flat, then that’s, that’s—it’s fine. If you want to give yourself back to the Spiral, then go ahead. But not now. Not like this. You weren’t given a choice last time. If you’re going to be making a choice like this now, you need to consider it fully. Think about the  _ big picture.” _

Michael lowers himself to the floor, still clutching the map for dear life. He draws his knees to his chest and wraps his elbows around them. “I’m no good at making choices, am I?”

You slowly approach him and sit down beside him, leaning back against the wall. Your heart is still hammering. “No, I don’t think you are.”

“Funny.” He lets out a wet chuckle. “Considering my agency might’ve been compromised by the Spiral.”

“Do you think it still is?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Else I wouldn’t be so torn up over human consciousness.”

He lays his head on your shoulder and uncurls his fingers, letting the map drop to the floor between you—which makes you feel a little better. You focus on his weight, his presence, the texture of his hair, and try to just breathe. In and out.

“I wish I hadn’t remembered this.” Michael bats at the map with a finger. “It just makes the decision harder, now that there really is a possibility. Such an enticing one.”

“Do you want to know what I think?”

“I know exactly what you think.”

“Does that change anything?”

He smiles. “I don’t suppose it’s fair to you if I bring you back into the realm of humanity and then just leave you to fend for yourself, is it?”

“Look, I get it. It’s no fun to be dependent on someone.”

Michael nods. You wonder if he’s thinking about Gertrude Robinson.

“Did you love her?” you ask, and he knows exactly who you’re talking about.

“Of course I did. Not—not like I love you, of course; I just kind of… saw her as  _ family, _ I suppose. Someone who I needed to take care of. Who I could trust.”

“You don’t need to  _ take care of _ me, you know.”

He blinks, like he hadn’t really considered that, but doesn’t elaborate.

It’s quiet for a minute. Your heart rate slows. You make a conscious effort to relax your limbs, letting the tension drain out of them.

Michael is still covered in goosebumps. You reach over to the coat rack, pull down his coat, and wrap it around his shoulders. He grips the edges and folds it around him like a cape, staring at his feet.

You take a deep breath. “Would it be terribly annoying if I asked you what you wanted?”

“Right now?”

“It can be anything.”

He’s silent for a moment. “I think I’d like to eat something.”

“Fortunately, I have just the thing.” You pull yourself to your feet, stretch, and lend Michael a hand, helping him rise unsteadily as well. “You sure you’re okay with feeding the Flesh in this instance?”

“Oh, shut up.”

He gives you a quick hug, and a kiss on the forehead, and traipses into the kitchen. You smile to yourself, then follow him.


	4. On Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He plucks another cookie from the tin and holds it just before your mouth. “Try them. They’re excellent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short one for today! (and happy almost pride month)

The rest of the day is quiet. You’re incredibly grateful for that—it gives you time to process, to let your heart rate properly slow down, let all the anxiety drain out of you. You tuck the map back into the pocket of Michael’s coat as soon as you can. When you pick it up (carefully, by the corner), you expect it to feel  _ weird _ in some way—maybe making your fingers tingle, maybe a little too hot to the touch—but it just feels like regular old paper.

Michael puts on his clothes and begins to slowly make his way through a couple of the more academic books that are still lying around your bedroom. It’s funny—he seems to have entirely claimed the bedroom as his own space, too. You don’t mind. It’s a comfy spot.

You sit around, try to cook, watch the news, aimlessly click through the internet. Maybe you should talk to Michael—figure out some real, concrete plans for the future. But not now. Not when you’re viscerally aware of how much that prospect terrifies both of you.

At around teatime, a gentle knock sounds at the door, and a flood of fresh panic crashes through your mind. It could be anyone. Simon, the police, even the Archivist or one of his cronies. You’re not ready for any of those people to know you’re alive yet.

So you’re surprised and relieved to find your elderly neighbor standing outside the door. What’s her name, Lucille? Lucinda? No, you think it’s Lucille. She lives in the flat on the first floor, and she’s seen you come in a couple times, most noticeably when you and Michael returned from that grove of death, dirty and bloody and limping.

She is, improbably, carrying a tin of what look like fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

“Thought I’d come check up on you boys,” she says as you gawk at her. “You’re looking much better than you did the other day. All healed up now?”

“Yeah,” is the only reply you can think of.

She peers into the flat. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“He’s, uh, we’re not—”

She waves this thought away. “It’s quite alright; I support the gays. Will you give him these?”

You just sort of stare at the cookies she’s holding out, and don’t tell her that you’re bisexual or that Michael isn’t quite a boy or anything like that.

“He seemed rather upset earlier,” continues Lucille, “and I had just finished a batch, so I thought a gift might be in order.”

“Earlier,” you echo.

“I was coming in around 10 or 11 and heard some shouting. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. It’s fine.” You smile, and hope it looks genuine. “Thank you.”

“Don’t be a stranger!” she calls before you close the door.

The whole exchange is more than a little bewildering. You don’t exactly have cause to think about your flatmates that often—well, ever, really. You know the guy below you is a middle-aged businessman who’s rarely home. Works in tech in Portsmouth, you think. Lucille is under him, and in the basement is a younger woman who owns a flower shop and two pet cats. You’ve interacted with them, sure—even gone to a couple neighbor get-togethers—and though you’ve always been polite and cordial, you’ve never thought of them as anything more than, well, people who lived near you. The one thing you definitely remember about all three of them is that none of them are all that afraid of heights.

“Who was that?” asks Michael, popping his head out of the bedroom.

“A neighbor.” You hold up the cookies. “Hungry?”

He grins, and moves forward to inspect the tin. “No, but I will never say no to a cookie. Did she bake them for us?”

“Yeah, I guess so. She, um… I think she heard some of your breakdown earlier.”

The smile slips off of Michael’s face. “She did?”

“I mean, I don’t think she, like,  _ heard _ anything. Just that you were upset.”

“Huh.” His expression is unreadable. He opens the tin and tastes a cookie. “Oh, these are good. We’ll have to thank her if we see her again.”

“It’s sweet,” you say quietly. “That she was concerned.”

“Yes, it is.”

“She called you my boyfriend.”

“Oh,  _ did _ she really?” Michael’s smirk is back in an instant, full-force. He places a hand on your waist.

“Well, are you?”

“Words like that are fairly meaningless. I could be. But I find it funnier that she would notice something like that.”

You snort. “What, you think she saw you helping me limp up the stairs and went ‘wow, those are some real homosexuals right there’?”

“Absolutely. Besides.” He gestures to his long, bouncy hair. “I don’t exactly  _ look _ straight, do I?”

“No, I suppose you really don’t, do you?”

He plucks another cookie from the tin and holds it just before your mouth. “Try them. They’re excellent.”

You take a bite. They’re warm and gooey—just perfect. You nod, and Michael grins.

“Maybe sometime we could try baking something ourselves?” you suggest after you finish chewing.

“Oh, yes.”

“Was Michael Shelley any good at cooking?”

“Not at all. But we have all the time in the world to learn, don’t we?”

The words flood you with a relief deeper than you’d anticipated, like a tension you didn’t know you’d been holding has been released. “You’re staying, then?”

“I think so. For some time, at least.”

You sigh, and pull him close to you, resting your forehead on his chest. “Alright. Thank you.”

“Thank  _ you, _ ” he repeats.


	5. On Breath and Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We both almost died. We’ve been disconnected from our patrons and now new Fears are feeding on us. I think that that is a reason to not be completely fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couple quick meta things!
> 
> 1 - mind the tags for this chapter (namely - panic attacks, mental health issues, and just canon-typical buried shit like suffocation)
> 
> 2 - *bonks myself on the head* stop writing sexual tension when you know you’re never gonna resolve it!!  
> …which is basically to say that there’s not gonna be any sex in this fic because i don’t really wanna write that. just felt like i should give a heads up so that there's no confusion/unfulfilled expectations!
> 
> 3 - literally no idea what the update schedule for this is gonna be like? i keep having ideas and then writing instead of doing homework so the writing just keeps happening… we will see!  
> (man it’s been a while since i did a proper, long multichapter fic..)

You sleep in late the next few days. As your bodies become more amenable to the idea of rest, you find yourselves falling back into the circadian rhythm—no more spontaneous mid-day naps, or waking up in the middle of the night feeling well-rested. You can usually get to sleep around midnight or so—though it fluctuates—and wake up around 9 or 10. That’s… a healthy sleep cycle, you think. That’s good for you. Getting enough sleep is “good for your body” and will “make you happier,” apparently.

Of course, that isn’t counting the semi-frequent wake-ups from nightmares. Mostly it’s just the usual “buried alive” scenario, and you awaken gasping for breath like the mucus in your throat has turned to dirt. Usually you end up waking Michael as well, especially when you throw off the covers to lie, spread-eagled and staring, upon the soft, smooth mattress that shouldn’t remind you of the earth but somehow doesn’t calm you down. You’ve taken to sleeping in your underwear, because at times like these you can’t bear to feel anything pressing at your body, not even the softness of a t-shirt. It would still enclose you, still weigh on your chest; its seams would still dig into you, their texture amplified a thousandfold. Plus, it’s beginning to get warmer as it heads towards summertime, and though the nights are still cool, you’d rather be chilly than caked with humid sweat. (And Michael likes it, of course, because it’s more of your skin to touch.)

There’s a new nightmare tonight—a dream of a stalking hunter, the terror of an attack that could come at any second, around any corner, behind any door. Why would you even be a target? You’re nothing. The universe is too big for a killer to waste time on you.

(When you’re more lucid, you know that you were right. You  _ weren’t _ the target. You were just in the way. But it’s not enough to relieve the part of your brain that makes up dreams.)

You need a distraction. Something to focus on that’s more substantial than cleaning the flat or going shopping or rereading books that barely interest you anymore. You long for the days when your main occupation was purveyor of vertigo, instilling the fear of heights in anyone you found on a ladder, or too high up a building. It gave you a purpose. It was  _ fun. _ But, again, drowning yourself in the past isn’t much good either. And therefore a distraction from your own memory is welcome as well.

“All right,” you say while you and Michael are eating breakfast—oatmeal, which, while bland, is probably  _ good for you. _ “I’ve decided what we’re going to do today.”

“And what is that?”

“We’re going to take a shower, because we keep forgetting, and because hygiene is important. And then we’re going to go to Marks and Spencer and buy you some clothes. Okay?”

Michael nods. “Hmm. Clothes. It’s been awhile since I went clothes shopping.”

“I mean, it’s not like Michael Shelley’s are still around.”

He goes very quiet, spoon frozen halfway through a scoop of oatmeal. Shit.

You know you shouldn’t ask, not right now, but you can’t help yourself. “Do you… know what they did with your old things?”

“Gertrude took them,” he says. He sighs, puts down his spoon. “I… checked. A little while after I became the Distortion. It occurred to me that I could simply… go back to my flat. And it was empty. Clothes donated, work notes confiscated, food tossed out, and I… I think she put my laptop in Artifact Storage? I never cared enough to check. The furniture was still there, though. The bed was unmade, just as I left it.”

He pauses, stirring the spoon around the bowl, staring off into space.

“It’s strange to think about now. That it was just a day like any other. I rolled out of bed and grabbed my suitcase and backpack and headed off to the Institute. And then I drove Gertrude to the airport. And that was the last time my home was my home. Because when I visited as the Distortion, I didn’t… well, I simply had no real emotional attachment to it anymore. I was not Michael Shelley, and I did not  _ have _ a home. In a way—to the wanderers, to those who feared me—I  _ was _ a home. But a horrible one, a broken one.”

“Is this your home now?” you ask quietly.

“I suppose so. I don’t know why not.” He blinks, then laughs suddenly, and the sound breaks the contemplative air around the table. “And that is why I have no clothes. So I suppose a trip to M&S would be in order.”

“But not without taking a shower. Can’t go out in public if you’re all stinky.”

Michael gasps in mock offense, pressing his palm to his chest. “You think I’m stinky, do you?”

“Well, yeah, a little. Just part of having a body.”

“Oh, I hate having a body.”

“Think of it this way. We get to shower together again.”

“Hmm. That is true.” He shovels the rest of his oatmeal into his mouth and stands, grinning. “Well. I am ready when you are.”

The two of you head to the bathroom. You’re already in your underwear—you didn’t bother to put anything more on when you woke up—so it’s easy to just slip that off and get into the shower, waiting for the water to get hot. Michael undresses, fortunately not too bothered by the fact that you’re watching him intently.

“This is a lot of soap,” he observes, casting his gaze across the sink, the cabinet, and the shelf in the shower.

“There’s a lot of dirt in the world.” You don’t mention how much you’ve been obsessively washing your hands and face. It’s probably evident from how dry your hands are. If Michael notices, he doesn’t comment.

He grabs a bottle of your new body wash from the cabinet and steps into the shower, closing the door behind him. Your heart is beating very very fast; the yearning to feel his skin against yours is stronger now. Like you’re magnets drawn together. There’s none of the surreal stupor of the other night’s intimacy, nor the awkward uncertainty of the first time you showered together. It’s exciting, now, in a scary kind of way. Michael doesn’t avert his eyes this time. It’s okay. You’re comfortable with each other.

But when the water touches you, what pools at the floor of the shower is clouded and muddy. Your stomach clenches as a wave of terror washes over you. Of course. Invisible dirt still clings to you, despite how clean you may look.

“It’s not going to wash out,” you breathe.

His eyes flicker downwards, and he inhales sharply. “I’m sure it will one day. It may take a while, but—”

“But what? I’ve been marked by the Buried. This isn’t stopping anytime soon. Like the nightmares.” You stumble away from the showerhead, head buzzing. You curl your hands into fists, staring at your too-pale skin, searching for any speck of dirt. But there is nothing there. Nothing but muddy water. To think that standing under the sky would rid you of a mark this deep—what a silly assumption.

“You told me that I have to live with my fear of the Flesh,” says Michael quietly. “So I am telling you that I think you can live with your fear of the Buried.”

“For how long?” You purposefully echo his words in your argument. “Until it  _ goes away?” _

Michael bites his lip. “That was… poor phrasing. I mean that…”

“What?”

He shakes his head. “I have no advice to give you. I want to say that it will get better. But…”

You stand there, both thinking the same thing, the thing you don’t want to verbalize. There are two outcomes here. Either Michael gets used to his body and you stop dreaming of crushing dirt, or… or nothing changes. You remain marked. The trauma keeps its grip on you, keeps generating stress, keeps feeding.

All of a sudden the shower seems too small. Claustrophobic. Walls closing in. The heat of your bodies as they stand in too close proximity.

“I,” you begin. “I need to… need to…”

You open the door and step out of the shower, then push open the bathroom window. Cool air flows in, and you close your eyes, feeling the way it brushes against your wet skin, making you shiver. You sit on the floor and put your head in your hands, concentrating on your breath, on how it enters and exits your lungs. You don’t  _ feel _ dirty. Nothing is infecting your skin; it’s not the Corruption you fear. But the mud is a sign. A symptom.

You try not to hyperventilate, but your breath comes in too quick (because you need the air) and your heart speeds up again but for all the wrong reasons. You feel dizzy. It’s not the good kind of dizzy; it’s not vertigo. Maybe if you keep your eyes open the darkness of your eyelids will stop reminding you of the darkness of an enclosed space. It’s as if your mind is folding in on itself, pressed too close, collapsing, restraining your movement. Thank god you don’t have any clothes on; they’d be choking you along with the weight of the too-warm air and the hard walls and the dirt at the bottom of the shower and—

Somewhere within your spiralling thoughts you register that the water has turned off, that Michael is kneeling beside you. A hand touches your arm—an agonizing pressure that you slap away instantly. You need to—what do you need to do? You need to breathe. Breathe. That’s what you do when you’re having a panic attack. Breathe breathe breathe and fill your lungs with air not dirt just air like the sky like the wide open spaces that you love like the opposite of confinement and you’re hyperventilating again now but you can’t stop, can’t calm down if you’re fighting for your life and your freedom and  _ air. _

“Mike,” comes Michael’s desperate voice. “Mike. Can you hear me? I’m sorry.”

You consider briefly the fact that you had a breakdown last time you were showering together too. Maybe the intimacy just makes all your emotions explode.

“You need to breathe.”

“I  _ am!” _ you choke out, and you hear your voice crack.

“Can I—”

“Shut up! Please—”

Michael’s hand slips into yours—gently, unobtrusively—but your skin screams like it’s been burnt, and you jerk away, your whole body moving this time. It unbalances you and you end up on the floor in a painful, crooked position, face pressed into the mat. It is Too Close and you Cannot Breathe. You flip yourself onto your back, lying sprawled and vulnerable in the middle of the floor, body wracked with sobs.

And suddenly your energy is spent, and everything is still.

A minute passes.

Your wet, heaving breaths become slower and deeper, and after a while, your tears dry up and you begin to feel clean again, like nothing is crushing you, like the room is big enough to hold you.

“Michael,” you whisper.

“I’m here.”

Your head is still turned towards the ceiling; you can only see him in the corner of your vision, sitting on the floor by your feet. You hold up your left hand. He moves over, grasping it in his right. His palm is sweaty. You squeeze it nonetheless. The pressure no longer sends panic shooting through you—it’s okay. You feel… better.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Just don’t touch me without asking, okay?” you murmur.

“Of course.”

He lays down next to you on his side, careful to make sure no points on his body come in contact with yours. What a cruel turn of fate—that you were craving his touch earlier, and now feel entirely too sensitive to it. Michael’s face is a picture of worry, his eyebrows knit together, pale as the grave. Only the edges of his hair are damp; he never got far enough into the shower to get any wetter.

“Should I turn the shower back on…?”

“No, I just want to lie here for a while, I think.”

“Okay.” His voice is so gentle it makes your heart melt. “As long as you want.”

You close your eyes, and you breathe. Not thinking about the past or the future. Just focusing on yourself and your body and the draught from the window. You’re cold, yes, but it seems utterly above your current level of functioning to do anything about that right now.

Could you summon up the vertigo again? It’s an effort, but as you lift your mind into the realm of the Vast, your stomach drops and the pleasant, familiar sensation of falling rushes through you for a couple seconds. The excitement and fear and wonder makes you feel more yourself, more  _ awake. _ It carves out a bigger space for you in the room—space enough to  _ fall. _ But it troubles you how fleeting it is, how difficult it was to summon. The barrier between you and the Falling Titan has grown too thick.

“Mike,” says Michael softly after maybe five whole minutes have passed.

“Mmm?”

“Is it going to get better?”

“Is what? Anything?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t that the question.”

His face twists. “It’s only been a week. We can pretend it will, I think. We can make up that narrative about the future and who knows; maybe it will turn out to be true.”

“And not just a lie.”

“No.”

You force yourself to turn onto your side towards him, peeling yourself from the cold, hard floor. Blood rushes through your limbs, revitalizing you somewhat. Making you feel like less of a statue. “Of course that would be your solution. To make something up.”

Michael’s laying with one arm raised above his head, and the other pressed up close to him, resting his knuckles by his chin. There’s a hollowness to his gaze, but he focuses back on you. “It isn’t a  _ bad _ one.”

“No, it isn’t. Not at all.”

“What would be  _ your _ solution?”

“I don’t know.” You sigh. “Maybe to just wait and see what happens?”

“But nothing is happening. We’re just here, stewing in our own trauma.”

“It’s getting better.”

You try to say it like you mean it. Progress  _ has _ happened. Michael’s decided to stay; he’s not going to go seek out the Distortion again. You’re comfortable enough with your own bodies to be in this scenario, to lie naked on the bathroom floor and talk about life. And you? What about you? Freaked out over some supernatural dirt. Is that really where you’re at? Sure, recovery is nonlinear. But isn’t it supposed to get better before it gets worse?

“I’m not Buried,” you say. More to yourself than to your companion. A reassurance. “I’m alive. I’m free. I can walk around and I can breathe. I have a wonderful person who I love living in my flat with me. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“We both almost died. We’ve been disconnected from our patrons and now new Fears are feeding on us. I think that that is a reason to not be completely fine.”

“Yeah. I know.”

You slowly pick yourself up off the floor, standing on unsteady feet. Blood rushes to your head and you grip the sink to ground yourself. Your entire back feels cold and raw from laying on the stone tiles. Michael stands as well.

“Okay,” you begin. “This is what we’re going to do.”

“Yes?”

“We’re going to finish taking a shower. Then we’re going to dry off, and, if we’re feeling up to it, we’re going to go to M&S. Because it’s necessary and I think it will be fun. Then we’re going to come home and I’ll heat up the quiche I got from Tesco and we’ll have a proper dinner. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“There we go. Thinking about the future isn’t too hard, is it?”

“Not like this. But what about tomorrow? Next week? Next month?” He can’t help the anxiety creeping back into his voice.

“I’ll—I’ll come up with a list of movies to watch. We’ll make our way through those. Or maybe a TV show. Something fun, like… I don’t know, Doctor Who or something. Then we’ll get out of the house and go somewhere interesting. The planetarium or the gardens or the Roman villa. Some of my favorite restaurants. Down to the harbor. Maybe over to Portsmouth. Hell, we could take the train up to London if we wanted. Stay in my flat there—I’m sure the repairs are done by now. The world is so  _ huge, _ Michael. There are so many places. We don’t have to stay here. We could make a project of it—a  _ purpose.  _ What do you say?”

“Maybe,” replies Michael, but it’s a genuinely hopeful  _ maybe, _ one that tells you he’s going to consider it. It’s okay. It’s a lot to think about. But it’s nice having… a possible path. Some sort of direction.

The two of you wander back into the shower. Bracing yourself for the rush of mud, you turn on the water and stand just next to the stream, watching as droplets run down your legs, gradually becoming murky as they do so. It’s not a  _ lot _ of dirt. Surely not enough to panic over. But it’s still  _ there. _ Still present in your mind.

Michael takes the body wash again, pours a great dollop into his palm, and looks at you expectantly.

“Hmm?”

“Can I touch you now?”

You look from his face to the lotion in his hand. “Are you… do you want to  _ wash _ me?”

“Yes?”

You stop yourself from saying  _ why? _ and instead say “Wow,” which is almost as idiotic. Your cheeks are quite warm.

“I think,” he says, blushing, “that it would be fun.”

“All right,” you respond, because now that you’re back in the shower, back in the steamy air and the hot water, back in the right frame of mind, you find that you’re still itching for Michael to run his hands all over you. Smooth skin isn’t the same as rough dirt.

Michael rubs his palms together and places them on your shoulders. It’s a light touch, barely more than a caress, still holding up his arms himself rather than letting them rest on you. He’s standing close enough that the ends of his curls fall on your forehead.

“Like that?”

“There’s more of me than just my shoulders.”

“Of course.”

He takes some more body wash and starts massaging your neck and upper arms. You pull a washcloth off the peg by the showerhead. It’s rough, not the most pleasant texture, but you can probably endure it. After Michael lathers soap all the way down both of your arms, you clean it off with the washcloth, trying not to notice the way the white suds become grey after a second.

It is a funny thing, to feel your lover’s hands roam every inch of your skin. It tickles horribly when he touches your sides; you have to keep yourself from lurching away. You’re remembering all the most sensitive parts of your body, especially when he kneels to work on your legs, and you almost jump when he touches the inside of your knees. To his credit, he’s doing a good job of keeping this all fairly chaste—even if you’re doing a bad job of pretending you’re not fairly horny. Eventually you just have to cover your hot face with your hands as Michael’s soft, teasing laughter reverberates around the shower.

But most of all it’s just… soothing. Nice to feel a texture that you actually  _ want _ on your skin. And there’s something to be said for the vulnerability of it all. Michael wants you to open, and here you are, opening, letting him perceive you through his hands, submitting yourself to the ordeal of being known. You can even forget the muddy tinge of the water for a while.

“You want me to do you too?” you ask as Michael stands, beginning to mix shampoo into your hair.

“If you like.”

So as Michael rinses your hair, you take the bottle of body wash and begin to travel his own skin. It’s so— _ real. _ Smooth and warm, peppered with scars, moles, hairs, freckles. Veins that carry blood (he’s human; he bleeds). He’s got a couple blotches of darker skin on his back, some stretch marks on his calves that you didn’t notice before, a fading bruise on his elbow that must’ve come from running into the coat rack the other day. It’s still funny to be seeing him like this, given how much the Distortion felt like a holographic projection, only just within the realm of reality.

You sit on the floor of the shower once you get to Michael’s feet. They’re looking a lot better—no longer quite so irritated. Michael sits as well, following up your swathes of body wash with his washcloth.

“Did you use any of the lotion I got you?” you ask.

“Yes. It was nice.”

“I assume this was from walking too much.”

He nods, and hands you the shampoo.

It’s no secret that Michael loves your scar, and that you love his hair. Interestingly, they’re the most Spirally things about the two of you. You comb your hands through it, maybe a little more gently than you need to, and revel in the way Michael smiles with all the energy of a lazy morning sun.

You end up just cupping his face in your sudsy hands and looking at him. Massaging the point where his jawbone connects to his neck. Ignoring the warm water that drizzles onto your shoulder and side.

You’re not sure who’s the first to learn in but soon enough you’re kissing him, and he’s kissing you back, and his face is covered in soap and shampoo but somehow you’re able to avoid getting any of it in your mouth. He places his hands on your hips but doesn’t pull you closer, conscious of how much pressure he’s putting on your skin. So you take it upon yourself to bring your chests close together, to breathe as deeply as you can even as your heart pounds, breathe with him. The heat of his body radiates off him like steam.

You move to trail your fingers down his chest, but remember that your hands are caked in shampoo, and pull away too soon, laughing to yourself. Michael untangles himself from you and stands up, moving directly underneath the showerhead. He grins and leans down so you can get your fingers back in his hair.

“You have too much hair,” you tell him as you grab the conditioner.

“I’m not cutting it.”

“I don’t want you to. I’m just saying.”

“What if you grew your hair out?”

“Do you think it would suit me?”

He considers this, absent-mindedly tugging at his own curls to spread the conditioner around. “I’m not sure. Maybe it was as long as mine. You’d lose the ‘windswept’ quality, but long hair always looks better when tousled by a breeze.”

He closes his eyes and works his hands around his head, rinsing out the conditioner. Ribbons of water cascade from him like a waterfall.

“I’ll think about it,” you reply, then, almost without thinking, bring your hand up to his face, pull him down towards you, and kiss him again. Both of you are properly clean now, from head to toe, and oh, it is so nice to really  _ feel _ him like this. The mud is almost gone from the bottom of the shower; you’ve chased it away, at least for now. Water is nice. Water reminds you of the vast ocean. Water rains on your face and catches itself in your eyelashes and drips into your open mouth. The two of you feel like divers, like dancers, moving your bodies together in sync like you’re part of the water that surrounds you. Michael even  _ tastes _ clean. You want to pass your lips over his body like you did with your hands, but that would take too long, of course. So you hold him, smell the sweet, sweet water, the gentle herbal scent of the conditioner, and  _ breathe. _

Michael takes your hands and rests his forehead against yours and closes his eyes. The water beats down, rhythmic against the tiles. Safety lies in that sound; the way it echoes around the small space shows you that there  _ is _ a space at all.

You reach out and turn off the shower, and the rain comes to an end. Leaving you cold and dripping wet, but at least that sensation means you’re alive and awake enough to feel it.

“Do you still want to go clothes shopping?” Michael whispers.

You step out of the shower and take a towel. “Maybe tomorrow. I’m going to dry off and then I’m going to go have a lie down.”

“Good idea.” He follows you out. “Take care of yourself.”

The towel is too rough, but you bear it for as long as it takes to go from soaking to merely damp. You’ll grab some fresh underwear back in your room—you doubt you’ll be wanting to wear anything more anytime soon.

“Thanks,” you say, and smile at him before you leave.


	6. On Presentation and Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well. I am a human, I suppose, and humans are allowed to be contradictory and complex. It is not just the monsters who get to break boundaries."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one of the first scenes i conceived of when i began writing this story - so glad i finally worked up the motivation to write it!
> 
> i have a lot of feelings about gender & monstrosity (especially since i'm nonbinary myself) and i worked really hard to convey those as best i could :0
> 
> it continues to be pride month, which, wonderfully, corresponds with the timeline of this fic. happy pride month.
> 
> theory referenced: "A Cyborg Manifesto" by Donna Haraway

For once, you don’t dream about being buried alive. You don’t dream about much at all, in fact. You wrap your arms around Michael and will the world to fade away, yearning for the days when sleep brought you comfort rather than terror.

Well, being held by your lover is comforting. Having something to look forward to—a fixed point in your timeline, even if it’s only a couple hours away—is comforting. Your cleanliness is comforting.

You wake in the late morning to the sound of drawers opening and closing. Michael stands before your dresser, rifling through your shirts. His bedhead sticks up at all angles. It seems like he isn’t having much luck finding what he wants. You can’t quite see his face from this angle, but when he peers back at you, it’s with an expression of scrutiny.

“Don’t worry,” you murmur, voice thick with sleep. “We’re gonna get you some new clothes, right?”

“Yes,” says Michael, stretching out the word. He looks down at the open drawer, then at you, then at the drawer. “I am just wondering what kind of clothes I’ll get.”

“I mean, we’ll have lots of time to try things on.”

“True.”

“And I wouldn’t exactly call myself a fashion icon, but I can help you pick stuff out?”

He doesn’t respond to that, just presses his lips together, somewhere between _apprehensive_ and _quizzical._

You sit up and push away the covers. “Something wrong?”

“No,” he says automatically. Then: “I have come to the unfortunate realization that clothing has a tendency to be gendered.”

“Ah.”

“And that I suppose I am now expected to… how shall I put it. To take that gendering into consideration.”

“You don’t have to, you know. I promise you can get whatever clothes you like.”

“Won’t people stare?”

The question catches you off-guard. It feels like such a mundane concern, compared to those of humanity and mortality that Michael tends to go on about. “Sure, but—you’re really worried about that?”

“Yes,” he says. “Well. I shouldn’t be. Perhaps I’ve acclimated too much. Let society’s fixations take root in my own brain again.”

“Or maybe the Beholding’s got its _eye_ on you,” you mutter, and regret it a little when Michael doesn’t laugh.

“It was very nice not having to worry about gender,” Michael continues. “When you are an unknowable servant of Fear, your presentation of your identity tends to take something of a back seat. Which is to say that… well….”

He stops, staring at the space on the wall somewhere between your head and the ceiling.

“What gender am I, Mike?” he says suddenly.

“How the hell am _I_ supposed to know _that?”_

“Maybe you’ll know better than me.”

“All right, mister _‘it’s impossible to ever know anything of another person’s subjective experience’._ That’s definitely something I can determine for you.”

He laughs. “Okay. You win.”

“But in all honesty—I thought you were non-binary, right?”

“Am I?”

“That’s the impression I got? If you’re not, then, um, that’s cool too—”

“Hmm. Non-binary.” He closes the drawer in front of him and perches at the end of your bed, lost in thought. “It’s a funny word, isn’t it? Because it’s about gender, yes, but by itself it could mean so much more. A non-binary identity is… what, exactly? A liminal identity? One that straddles the boundaries of things? It must be a monstrous identity, then—it is intrinsically linked to category crisis; it dwells at the gates of difference from what we may call the _norm.”_

“It feels… wrong to call non-binary people _monstrous.”_

“That isn’t what I’m saying. I’m not talking about people; I’m talking about the word. Purely theoretically. Here’s an example. How about—cyborgs are monsters, aren’t they? And a cyborg is the ultimate non-binary being. Is it a human or a machine? Perhaps it doesn’t need to be either. Perhaps it can embrace its permanently partial identity, its contradictory standpoints. Perhaps cyborgs will free us from gender.”

“I feel like you’re quoting philosophy again.”

“Feminist theory, actually.”

You can’t help the smile creeping onto your face. “So, what? You’re a cyborg, then?”

“The Distortion was a cyborg. A cyborg is what happens when an unknowable, inhuman consciousness—or not-consciousness—is merged with a _self._ A computer tied into the brain of an individual. A hallway that became a person. Becoming a cyborg challenges your identity, your agency.”

“And does becoming a cyborg make you non-binary?”

“Gender-wise?”

“Yeah.”

“Donna Haraway would say so.”

“Is that your theorist?”

“Yes,” says Michael, with a bit of a smug look. You’re amazed at how much random academic theory he seems to have at his fingertips, ready to be recalled at any possible opportunity. It’s funny—it’s a tie to the real world, no matter how much the Distortion liked to use it to fuck with you.

“You once said that I have a _liminal identity_ too, thanks to my connection with the Vast. Does that make _me_ non-binary?”

Michael chortles. “Perhaps I have gone too far into theory. In reality—which, I admit, is not the position from which I’m used to situating my claims—nothing can decide someone’s gender but the individual it belongs to, not even an incarnation of Fear itself. And yet…”

He scoots over and sits next to you, leaning against the headboard.

“And yet I cling to my own _liminal identity_ in all regards. And here is how it goes back to our clothes shopping trip. Because I don’t think I particularly want to be perceived as male or female. Sure, I can tolerate it for some time, but there is still a _wrongness_ there. Is that dysphoria?”

“It sounds like it, but I’m not the one to ask.”

He licks his lips, eyebrows knit together. “Is it still dysphoria if it stems from that need to not be _known?_ There’s… a feeling that’s the same flavor as a lie, except… what am I lying about this time? What is the truth? Is it a truth that’s even possible to uncover in its entirety? For me or for anyone?”

“That sounds very Spirally.”

“It is. And I am not unaware of the Fleshy undertones in all this as well. But the question is, where’s the Spiral influence here? Did the Spiral beget my confusion, or my identity itself?”

“You’re asking if the Spiral made you non-binary.”

“Am I truly non-binary if so much of my identity has been pasted together from the scraps of my experience with an entity of unreality? To have a non-binary gender—that is something _real._ It’s something very real, and very human, and always has been. It isn’t _monstrous._ But where does that leave me?”

“I mean…” You pause, then let out a breath. “You don’t… _feel_ fully male or female, right?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then you’re technically non-binary, right? Whether or not the label appeals to you is a different question, but—”

“I suppose it isn’t incorrect.”

“Then, honestly, I don’t understand your problem.”

He sighs, leans further into the pillows. “I think that… the means by which I realized I had no place within the gender binary should have little bearing on the fact that I do not fit that binary. But do you understand why I’m so uncomfortable with this? With assigning such agency to the Spiral? There are those who fear the unravelling of binary gender, who call it _madness_ when someone dares to break the boundaries of that fragile construct. Does the Spiral preside over that fear? Did it take my gender to confuse me, to make me think I was mad, to make me feel less human, less real? Does it exist to taunt those who will not stretch their minds to conceive of possibilities that seem unreal and illogical to them?”

You don’t have an answer to all that, and apparently, neither does Michael.

“Or does the Spiral know that all gender is equally real and unreal? That it is a construct, a pretense of society, and yet one that seems so incredibly important? Did it just offer me a taste of existence beyond boundaries? I would like to believe that the Spiral guided me towards this gender identity rather than forced it upon me. Revealed to me the lies about gender that are so entrenched in our society, and let me find my own way. The fact that I did not lose my liminal gender like I lost my liminal body is… telling.”

“Right,” you whisper. “Right. You’re not the Distortion, but you’re still non-binary. So maybe it was _you_ who made that decision? Er—sorry, not _decision,_ but—”

“I know what you mean. And I—I know very well that trying to separate _me_ from _the Distortion_ is ultimately an act of futility. But… I don’t know. I know that Michael Shelley was fairly gender-nonconforming, but I cannot remember what it was like to be him anymore, not really.”

“Does it matter?”

“Does what matter?”

“The reason why you’re non-binary. Do you even _need_ a reason?”

“It just scares me that it might have been… out of my control.”

“Do you not _want_ to be non-binary?”

Michael shakes his head. “It does feel _right._ Confusing, but… true.” He laughs. “That’s a loaded word, considering my relationship with truth. Well. I am a human, I suppose, and humans are allowed to be contradictory and complex. It is not just the monsters who get to break boundaries.”

His face splits into a grin, and he pushes himself off the bed. You follow, stretching as you stand up. The conversation’s got your head hurting a bit, but Michael looks a lot more comfortable now, so you’d say it’s worth it.

“Would you like me to use a different name or pronouns for you?” you ask.

“I don’t mind _Michael_ or _he._ But thank you for asking.”

“You know, it _would_ be easier if your name weren’t literally the same as mine.”

“Oh, really!” He cackles, looping an arm around your waist. “Shall I change my name, then? Just for you? Just so it doesn’t get too _confusing?”_

You give him an affectionate slap on the chest. “Oh, shut up.”

“No, no, please tell me your ideas! You know I’m not very attached to names. Perhaps I could rotate between a few. Shake it up every week! _Or,_ to make the decision process easier, each one could be a different variant of Michael. So next week I can be Mike, then I’ll be Mikaele…”

“I think you’ve just described my worst nightmare.”

“Ooh!” The sound of his giggles is music to your ears. “I didn’t realize that the Stranger had such a hold on you. Fear of robbed identity and peeling names that you could swear were never yours? Maybe we _should_ worry about the Unknowing!”

 _“Or,_ we could go shopping for clothes.”

“Or that!” he hums, then takes your hand and prances out of the bedroom.

After a quick lunch of reheated Wagamama noodles, you change into something presentable and head out with Michael at your heels. The shirt he’s chosen today is plain blue, and definitely a bit too short—whenever he raises his arms above his head, it exposes a sliver of skin at his midriff. Just as well you’re going shopping; you only have so many oversize t-shirts.

“Do we have a budget for this shopping trip?” he asks as you head towards the center of town. “Assuming that you’d rather not steal anything.”

“We won’t need to. We are limited only by what amount of Simon Fairchild’s excessive wealth I can manage to leech off without him noticing. So… go crazy, I guess.”

He grins, then looks straight down at you. “Mike.”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to hold hands?”

A smile spreads across your lips. “Sure you’re not afraid of people staring?”

“Oh, please. I think that’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

He extends his hand, and you take it—smooth and slender, nestling perfectly into yours. It feels like a real hand, a hand whose skin you’ve touched so many times. You’re not going to lie; being so visibly gay in public is something that sets a pang of nervousness in your stomach, but what the hell. If Michael can deal with it, so can you.

You head off, hand in hand, into the streets of Chichester.

You’re almost to Marks and Spencer when something catches Michael’s eye. He drags you over, narrowly avoiding a group of bickering men who are sauntering down the very middle of the street. It looks like a charity shop. It’s a surprisingly large store, the first storey painted a pale blue, made of the same reddish brick as everything else on this street. And you’re not surprised Michael was so drawn to it—in the two huge window displays that sit on either side of the door, you see an array of garish clothing in a rainbow of colors. Of particular note is the mannequin in a shockingly yellow blouse and tight orange trousers.

“Do you mind if we pop in here first?” Michael’s voice can barely contain the excitement that drips from it.

“I mean, this seems more of your style than Marks and Spencer, so sure.”

He flings open the door and strides in. Fortunately for him, it does seem to be mostly a clothes store—women’s clothing on the left, men’s on the right, assorted items adorning the shelves, and three changing rooms in the back. There are about six or seven other people in here, a diverse array of ages and genders, scattered about the store. The woman at the till on the left has dyed-pink hair in a messy bun, overalls, and a she/her pronoun pin, which instantly makes you feel safer.

“Do you think you’ll get anything?” asks Michael. His eyes eagerly scan the space like a child in a candy store.

“I don’t know. Let’s see.”

You turn towards the men’s section as Michael wanders off and plucks some gaudy sweatshirt from a rack. Everything here is a bit tacky for your taste, honestly. Either too tacky or too retro or too _much._ It’s hard to find a nice, unpatterned button-down. You do end up picking out a dark blue shirt with an unobtrusive design that looks a bit like ocean waves.

What’s a lot more fun is watching Michael as he dances among the racks, seeming to find the ugliest item of clothing on each one and add it to the growing pile in his arms. Occasionally he finds something that makes him burst into giggles and wave you over, trying to contain himself while also not dropping any of the clothes he’s gathered. There’s a t-shirt with hyper-realistic boobs printed on it. A pure black sweater with arms so long they’re sure to reach the knees of whoever wears it. A thin designer shirt riddled with actual holes (“This is what Jane Prentiss wears,” proclaims Michael in a fit of hysteria). Hot pink jorts, which you are _completely_ certain Michael would buy in a heartbeat if they weren’t clearly too small for him.

When he disappears into the changing room, you’re slightly afraid of how he’s going to look when he comes out. The woman at the till with the dyed hair is clearly interested as well—her eyes have been following him as he systematically selects the worst patterned clothes of each section of the store, and she keeps glancing keenly at the changing room. You almost want to go up and strike a conversation with her— _yep, that’s my partner; yep, he’s just like that!—_ but obviously refrain. You may not be as socially awkward as you used to be, but you’re sure as hell not going to be the one to initiate an interaction.

Finally, Michael emerges like the world’s most horrendous butterfly from a wooden chrysalis. You suppose it _could_ be worse. He could have taken the boob shirt in with him. But what he’s wearing is simultaneously so very bad and so very _Michael._ He’s in a fuzzy nylon jacket, a neon green-blue color that most certainly does not exist anywhere in nature. It’s patterned with black, white, and red checkered stripes, and covered in circular patches in which the colors invert themselves, making him look like a 7-year-old’s Photoshop accident. His shirt bears a swirling floral pattern reminiscent of a bowling alley carpet—too-bright colors on a dark background. He’s somehow managed to find a cheap rainbow feather boa that he’s wrapped around himself like a sash. The only marginally nice piece of clothing is his skirt, which is covered in sunflowers, but even that is a slightly-too-bright shade of yellow.

You can’t help but burst out laughing. God, you love him _so_ much. The woman at the till is also stifling a good-natured snicker. Michael’s grin widens, and he twirls around, the edges of his skirt picking up.

“What do you think, love?” he asks, so very casually, so much so that you almost miss the little endearment he’s tacked onto the end. Your heart swells.

“I don’t think I can be seen in public with you like this.”

“You are a coward and you have no taste.”

“I think you’ve spent too much time in, shall we say, gaudily-decorated buildings.”

“Eh, I’d say they’ll fit right in anywhere,” comes an amused voice from the till. The almost-certainly-gay shopkeeper has her chin in her hands, elbows propped up on the desk.

“Exactly!” Michael gestures to her with grandiosity. “I think this is what your city needs, Mike. Along with a hefty paint job. Too much brick; too little color.”

“Amen to that,” says the woman.

“Not half an hour ago you were having a crisis about the horrors of being perceived.”

“Oh, you know how good I am at switching out of Crisis Mode.”

You _almost_ want to make a quip about something like, oh, the time he ran around in his underwear brandishing an impossible map, but decide that would be insensitive. “You certainly are,” you agree with just the perfect blend of sarcasm and affection.

“You know,” interjects the woman at the till, indicating Michael’s feather boa, “everything rainbow’s half off for Pride Month. Might find yourself some other fun colorful things while you’re at it.”

“It’s _Pride Month??”_ you say too loudly.

“Yeah, June?”

You share a glance with Michael. You were buried at the end of April, and now—well, of course it must be June. Gone for two months. Living day to day certainly hasn’t helped you gain a sense of your place in the overall structure of the year.

“I didn’t realize it was June,” you murmur, which probably sounds quite silly, given that it’s likely late in the month by now.

Seeing your horror-stricken expression, Michael leans close to the woman and says in a stage whisper, “Don’t worry about my boyfriend; he’s recovering from a coma and missed the entire month of May.”

She looks at him like she’s not sure if he’s joking or not. You’re not sure _why_ Michael felt the need to share this information—something about not knowing how to interact like a normal human? —but you feel your face grow warm at the mention of his _boyfriend._ Maybe he’s just trying to embarrass you as much as possible.

“Are you, uh, going to buy any of this?” You gesture at Michael’s entire outfit.

“Absolutely. Let me make sure the rest of the clothes I picked out fit.”

“Then we’ll go get you some normal clothes from M&S.”

“Why the hell do I need normal clothes?”

“Because I’m not going to continue lending you my underwear.”

“Alright, fine,” sings Michael, turns on his heels, and marches back into the changing room. You sigh and shake your head, cheeks aching from how much you’ve been smiling.

“I can’t believe I forgot Pride Month,” you mutter under your breath.

“It’s not too late!” calls the shopkeeper. She reaches under her desk and pulls out a box of pins, each with a different flag of a gender or sexuality. You hesitate for a moment, then pick out two rainbow ones, a bisexual one, and a non-binary one for Michael. You have a feeling he’ll appreciate that.

Michael comes out once more, back in his relatively-boring shorts and shirt with a bundle of clothes in his arms. He sets them down on the register and grins at the woman behind it.

“Not a bad haul,” you say as you pay. And definitely less expensive than you’d anticipated.

He affixes the non-binary pin to his shirt and begins to sort all the clothing into bags. “Not bad at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to say that michael's fuzzy neon jacket is loosely based on something i used to own (except mine was not nearly as bad as that...)


	7. On Visitors and Powerlessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael purses his lips. “Is our cover blown, then?”
> 
> “Cover?”
> 
> “I thought that we were more or less pretending to be dead. Or off the grid, at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, another character to tag!
> 
> this fic is becoming more humorous than i thought it would, which is great tbh

The doorbell sounds  _ much _ too early in the morning, making you sit bolt upright in bed, cold sweat beginning to seep across your skin. Michael groans and pulls the covers over his head. Fueled by anxiety, pooling dread, and the certain knowledge that the person outside the flat is definitely  _ not _ your friendly neighbor Lucille, you fetch a shirt and pants and make your way to the door.

When you press the button by the buzzer and murmur a generic greeting, you are  _ not _ ready for the smooth, clear voice that announces, “Mike? What’s up? It’s Jude Perry.”

A wave of nausea courses through you, and you just stand there, mouth gaping like a fish, until you finally muster up the courage to stammer, “J-Jude? What the fuck?”

“The very same!”

“How did you know I—”

“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”

“You’re not going to burn the door down again?” you ask, and regret it when you hear the chortling sound she makes.

“Oooh, what a wonderful idea. Nah, I’m feeling very  _ nice _ today, luckily for you.”

Regretfully, you push the other button and hear the door downstairs click open. Good god. This is not the adrenaline shock you needed at 7:30 AM. You throw on your clothes before you can get  _ too _ dazed; you would probably rather die than let Jude see you in your underwear.

Michael seems to have gone back to sleep, which is… good? Hopefully you can just deal with this whole situation yourself and he never needs to get involved. You’re sure Jude’s heard of the Distortion; hell, maybe they’ve even met properly. Even more reason to leave Michael out of it. You close the door to your bedroom and hurry back to the front door when a loud knock sounds.

Jude looks exactly as you remember. She’s in a plain t-shirt and cargo shorts, which would seem inappropriate for the early-morning temperature if she were anything other than what she is. Her close-cropped hair that sticks up at the front and her smug grin are nothing new.

“Okay,” you begin in a voice filled with sleep, “what are you doing here?”

She shrugs. “Thought I’d pay a visit.”

“Really? Just popping by? After what you did last time you ‘visited’?”

“What did I do last time?” She sounds genuinely ignorant, which would piss you off if you weren’t so tired.

“Oh, yeah, I supposed when you’ve burned down enough flats they all begin to blur together in your memory.”

She makes an  _ ahhh _ sound. “Oh, come on, Mike, I didn’t burn it  _ down. _ Just singed a bit around the edges. Crispy. Toasted!”

“Do you have any idea how much those repairs cost?”

“Probably not too much when you have a centuries-old sugar daddy to cover shit like that.”

Even though it is most certainly the wrong word choice, you don’t have it in you to argue with her on that one. You sigh. “Please. You  _ know _ I don’t like when people stick their noses into my business.  _ Why _ are you here? Do you want something from me? Don’t suppose you’ve come to apologize for—for ‘toasting’ my London flat?”

“Are you really all that mad about it?”

“I mean, I’d say I’m about as mad as is reasonable.”

“Suit yourself. Doesn’t concern me.”

It really does, but, well, let bygones be bygones and all that. You lean against the doorframe, massaging your temples. “Did you really come here all the way from London?”

_ “Please. _ I was in the area.”

“Clearly I’m not high on your priorities list.”

“No, you aren’t. But… well… it didn’t escape my notice that you disappeared right after I sent the Archivist after you.”

Something sharp and hot flares inside you as you digest the realization. “You… that was you? You told him where I lived.”

“At a price, don’t worry. Did you see his hand?”

It’s taking everything in you to not let the anger boil until the pressure cooks you alive. You just do what you normally do—stand there, fuming silently. You  _ could _ lash out, tell her what exactly the Archivist’s visit did to you—no, not his visit itself (which was rather pleasant, admittedly), but its aftermath. But she wouldn’t care. And you’re not one to share that much, especially not with her.

“Soooo,” Jude continues, “when I figured out that you  _ weren’t _ actually dead like we all thought—”

“How did you—?”

“The Lightless Flame,” she says in a faux-mystical tone, “has eyes everywhere.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am kidding, actually. It was because you liked something on Twitter. I noticed. Made some inquiries. Then decided to stop by.”

“I— _ what?? _ You follow me on Twitter?” The bewilderment cancels out your anger for a moment.

“Yes?”

“Aren’t we, um. Not friends?”

“I follow plenty of people who I dislike on Twitter. You aren’t special, Mike. You  _ are _ lucky in that I haven’t gotten any of my adoring fans to  _ flame _ you yet.”

“I’m blocking you as soon as you leave.”

“You fool. I have 70 alternative accounts. You can’t escape my internet wrath that easily.”

“You’re not funny, you know.”

“I’m wounded,” she says in a monotone. “That was my only purpose in life. To entertain you specifically.”

“Shut up.”

“I think you’re allergic to fun. Just go out and push some people off buildings or something. You’ll feel much better.”

The suggestion, actually, makes you feel worse.

Jude sidesteps into your flat and perches on the arm of the couch, leaning her elbow against the couch’s back and propping her chin in her hand. You continue standing by the still-open door. It feels like she’s invaded your space now; it’ll be harder to make her leave than just slamming the door in her face.

“Maybe,” says Jude, “let’s say that… I’ve been struck by that horrid little blight of  _ curiosity. _ Uncharacteristic, I know. But here’s the thing! One day, I have a nice little chat with the Archivist, play around with him a bit, hurt him a little, give him your address because he is basically curiosity incarnate. Couple days later, you’re gone. Off the grid. No body or anything. ‘Course, I just assumed you were dead and went on my merry way, no strong feelings there. And now you aren’t. So, the question is—why?”

“People disappear and end up  _ not dead _ all the time. Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” she replies instantly. “I am just  _ curious.”  _ She punctuates the last word with a sly grin that makes your insides squirm with frustration.

“Have you considered that I was just having some alone time?”

“For two months? If you were a Lukas I wouldn’t be surprised, but…”

“Why the hell is this important to you? I don’t owe you an explanation of why I’ve been… away.”

She crosses her arms and shrugs. “Fine, have it your way. But it is  _ interesting, _ isn’t it? I don’t suppose you’ve been taking a break from, well, everything? Even serving your patron?”

Her fiery eyes bore into yours—even without the Beholding behind them, being watched like that makes your stomach turn over and over, dread creeping through you. What cause does she have to suspect you haven’t been feeding the Vast? That the circumstances of your disappearance weren’t more suspect than would be expected? The whole thing unsettles you—there’s something here that Jude isn’t saying.

“Careful, or you might become the Falling Titan’s next meal.”

Jude grips the back of the sofa. The fabric distorts, and it begins to smoke. “Are we doing threats now?”

“You could do a lot better than burning my sofa.”

“Oh? Is that a challenge?”

Jude stands, her arms falling by her sides. It is plainly evident that she is taller than you, and her smoking fists just make her even more intimidating. Your confidence slips off you like water off oily skin. Are you really strong enough to pull her into the Vast? Right here? Now?

But, before either of you can do anything, the door to your bedroom opens and Michael wanders out, dressed only in his underwear and a long t-shirt with a horrendous spiralling tie-dye pattern. He peers blearily at Jude. Jude just stares.

There’s a pause.

“...Do I know you?” Jude says. Her hands begin to cool down.

Michael blinks. You’re not sure if he recognizes her or not. “Why are you in our flat?”

Jude whips around to face you, expression brimming with glee. “You have a  _ boyfriend?? _ You fucked off for two months to elope with some dude and then came back here? Oh, this is priceless; I’m sure Simon will—”

_ “Simon??” _

“Yeah, Simon Fairchild? Your evil grandpa?”

“What does he have to do with this?”

“Nothing, I just think he’d find that pretty funny—”

“Do you even  _ know _ Simon?”

“We’ve met,” she replies with a smirk.

“Did—hold on.” Oh, bloody hell. Everything is falling into place; your conviction gets stronger with every word. “He set you up to this, didn’t he? Made you come here? He  _ knows _ I don’t like you! God, this is just like him, isn’t it? How much did he pay you?”

“Not as much as you think.” Jude’s smile is wider than you’ve ever seen it. “Like I said, I was in the area. Couldn’t hurt to stop by, piss you off a bit.” She turns to Michael. “I  _ swear _ I know you from somewhere. Did you used to hang around Gertrude Robinson?”

There’s a sneer embedded there at the end of her sentence. Michael blanches.

“How did you and Simon even  _ meet,” _ you interrupt before Jude can speculate more on Michael’s identity.

“At a party, believe it or not. You know, much as I may despise the Vast, he’s a fun guy. Great company, even after I burnt off his bow tie.”

You’re not sure if this should make you laugh or fill you with rage. You can just imagine Jude and Simon sitting around and gossiping about you. “Is this his way of checking up on me?”

“More or less. You wouldn’t expect him to show up himself, would you? He’s a busy man!”

This time you can’t stop yourself from chuckling. “Yeah, ‘busy’ canoodling with Peter Lukas and taking lengthy vacations to the Alps.”

“Well, guess my cover is blown.” She begins to amble towards the door. “Though I might not be, I guess Simon’ll be glad to hear you’re  _ definitely _ still alive, in some way, shape, or form. Up to you if you wanna tell  _ him _ the truth about why you’ve been gone. Though, knowing him, I’d bet he either already knows or doesn’t particularly care, and just got me to ask because he thought it would be funny.”

“Bye,” you say.

She gives you a salute and slams the door behind her.

You and Michael exchange a glance.

“Was that Jude Perry?” says Michael finally.

“Yeah.” You grab your laptop from the table and flop down on the couch, trying not to notice the imprint of Jude’s hand on the arm.

“What are you doing?”

“Blocking her on Twitter.”

“What?”

You sigh. “Honestly, she was probably lying about that, but better safe than sorry.”

“How did Simon know you were still alive?”

“No clue, unless he somehow noticed me buying stuff. I suppose super-powerful avatars have their ways.”

It is, you have to say, rather cathartic to hit the block button on Jude Perry’s Twitter account. She has a lot more followers than you expected. Maybe you  _ should _ be worried about online harassment.

Michael purses his lips. “Is our cover blown, then?”

“Cover?”

“I thought that we were more or less pretending to be dead. Or off the grid, at least.”

“I guess so.” You close your laptop and stare up at the ceiling. Your head is still spinning from your conversation with Jude. So much information in so little time. An anxiety pulses through you, something too quick to process right now. “I… don’t know how I feel about people knowing I’m alive. Simon—Simon is fine. I was planning to email him at some point or something like that. Jude is… Jude. I doubt she’ll start spreading rumors but you never know.”

You look back at Michael. He’s still standing by the door to your bedroom, arms folded behind his back. For the first time you notice how shaken he looks.

“Don’t suppose you want to be  _ known _ either,” you murmur.

“Absolutely not.”

You don’t mention the pangs of betrayal that still reverberate within your chest. Sure, Jude giving the Archivist your address was harmless enough. Hell, you were even happy to give him a statement. And getting beat up by a Hunter is an occupational hazard when you’re an avatar of fear. Are you scared that Jude’s going to send someone else after you? She doesn’t hate you  _ that _ much. When did you start feeling so fragile?

Well, the answer to that one is obvious.

“Do you,” you begin, and pause, taking in Michael’s apprehensive expression. “Do you feel safe here, Michael?”

His eyes follow the scorch marks on the sofa. “I suppose that’s another thing I miss about being the Distortion, isn’t it? The power. The ability to protect myself. It is nice to be the aggressor rather than the victim.”

“I’m serious. Do you see yourself becoming a victim?”

“Logically? No, I don’t think so. But I…” He sighs. “I can’t say I’m ready to go back into the real world, where people like Jude Perry roam, burning down buildings for the fun of it. Maybe that’s just my distaste for the Desolation speaking, or my position as someone who used to be a building, more or less. Plus, the reminder that there are people out there who would associate me with Gertrude or the Institute… is not a pleasant one.”

“How would she even know that?”

“She knew Agnes.”

“Agnes?”

“Agnes Montague. But that is another story.”

You stand and walk towards the kitchen. Maybe tea will help. Michael trails behind you, watching as you search through your stash of teabags.

“Do you think,” you say slowly, “that becoming human is a sign of weakness? That we should be doing more to rekindle our relationships with our patrons?”

Michael laughs. “So that we can be on par with the likes of Jude Perry.”

“For so many reasons. So that we can get ourselves back in the game. So we can protect ourselves, grow stronger. So we can be  _ dangerous _ again.”

“You’re still dangerous. You made the sky eat someone the other day.”

“Well, okay, but that’s—it’s harder now. To do stuff like that. It’s not as automatic. And you—you said you were completely disconnected from the Spiral, right?”

He shudders and doesn’t respond. You take that as an affirmative.

“It’s something to think about.”

“I  _ have _ been thinking about it. And I’ve decided not to return to the Distortion. I… don’t know what it’s like to serve a Fear without  _ becoming _ an aspect of it in such a violent, identity-rending way.”

Your fingers close around your mug and rest there for a moment. “It changes you, that’s for sure.”

Michael doesn’t respond. You’ve had parts of this conversation before; there’s no need to rehash both of your complicated feelings on your patrons. But, really, you have no idea why you always hesitate. Serving the Vast was a joy like you’ve never experienced before. Why not wholeheartedly throw yourself back into that life, keeping Michael by your side this time?

“Here’s a question,” says Michael when your tea is done steeping.

“Yes?”

“Haven’t you already achieved what you set out to do when you bound yourself to the Vast?”

“What? I didn’t do it to achieve a goal; I—”

“To seal the Lichtenberg Figure?”

You stop. It’s been years since you last thought of your old tormentor, of the book that saved you. No, that’s not quite true—you relayed your story to the Archivist, but that also seems like years rather than months in the past.

“That was more like killing two birds with one stone.”

“I suppose so.”

“Why do you bring that up? To convince me that I don’t really  _ need _ to serve the Vast anymore?”

“It’s simply a thought that occurred to me.”

You sip your tea. It’s not as strong as you might’ve liked; you didn’t let it steep for long enough.

“Remember all the silly plans we made?” continues Michael. His tone is casual, but there’s a hint of some deeper emotion, something like  _ worry. _ “Travelling, watching shows together,  _ human _ things.”

You do remember. You remember laying on the floor in the aftermath of a panic attack and promising Michael that there  _ was _ a future. “Yeah. And that would be nice. Really nice. But also—there’s a chance for everything to return to normal, isn’t there? I just have to get off my ass and talk to Simon. Figure things out with the Vast.” It’s a stupid way to word it, as if the Vast is an ex-lover with whom you’re attempting to reconcile, but you press on. “And  _ then _ maybe the Buried will finally stop weighing down on me.”

“Normal,” he repeats. “For you, maybe, yes, you could return to the way things were, or at least an imitation of it. But there is no  _ normal _ for me to chase after.”

“Right.” You gulp down the rest of your tea and let out a long breath. “That’s—right. I just… you know that whatever I do, I won’t leave you behind, okay? We’re still in this together.”

He nods, looking somewhat relieved.

“Besides, it’s not like I’m going to fuck off and throw myself out of a belltower again. At the very least I’ll wait for Simon to properly contact me before doing something like that.”

Michael laughs. “And if he gets back to you with a verdict of ‘Mike, please jump out of another belltower at your earliest convenience’?”

“Then I guess I’ll be off to the cathedral!”

Your phone, sitting on the counter next to the empty mug, dings unexpectedly. You jump, and pick it up to glance at it.

“What’s up?”

“I think I underestimated Jude’s capacity for cruelty,” you respond with a barely suppressed smirk. “That’s a lot of Twitter notifications. Guess I’ll have to go on another blocking spree later.”

“Or, be smart like me and don’t use Twitter.”

“Really? Don’t tell me the Distortion wasn’t on Twitter. It’s chock full of madness. I think the Spiral would have a field day watching people lose their minds over the internet.”

“Believe me, the Spiral is an expert on the horrors of the digital world.” He grins. “Chatbots, artificial intelligence, escaping reality and flesh. What twisting takes place in the mind of a neural network? If an algorithm generates a photograph of a cat, is it real? If the connections of a human brain could be converted into code, is that a real consciousness?”

“Okay, you’ve made your point.”

“Excellent.” He wanders out of the room, pausing at the threshold between the kitchen and the living room. “I’m going back to bed. Enjoy your Twitter drama.”

“I will!” you call, smiling after him.


	8. On Books and Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lion Street Books is exactly as you remember it. A small, compact exterior gives way to a tunnel of bookshelves within, shelves that you could get lost in. It’s maintained the antique stylings that drew you in all those years ago, the sort of aesthetic tone that manages to convey both comfort and mystery.

You keep refreshing your email, keep listening out for a phone call, but Simon Fairchild, it seems, is not bothering to contact you in any way. It shouldn’t frustrate you as much as it does. He’s always been rather flippant when it comes to maintaining close relationships—which is understandable, sure, but you’d love a sign that maybe he cared about your well-being, just a little. Then again, maybe sending Jude was that sign.

The stupidly obvious answer is just to call or email him yourself, or—heavens forbid—download Snapchat or whatever the fuck his new digital haunt of choice is, because you’re willing to believe that he checks his Snapchat more than he checks his email. But it feels weird to reach out to him like that, especially when you’ve been laying low. Better to let him break the silence first, then you can get a read on his attitude and respond appropriately. Better, at least, than yelling into the void, giving him a first-hand account of your alive-ness.

You haven’t heard from Jude either since she waltzed out of your flat. Her army of Twitter followers spewing profanities at you was easy, if exhausting (and a little amusing), to deal with, but you didn’t recognize anyone among their number. If the Lightless Flame knows you’re alive, whatever. They don’t care about you.

But, even so, you can’t stop thinking about Michael’s concerns. Are you caught in between two sides now—those who align themselves with fear entities and those who refuse to do so? It’s hard to observe the Fears from the outside without falling prey to one; that much is written throughout history. The only one you’ve personally known to do so was one Gerard Keay, who you begrudgingly admired even as you disliked him for his book-burning tendencies.

And there’s something else you’ve been thinking about. Books.

You’re not sure if it’s nostalgia, curiosity, or something else that makes you tug Michael down Lion Street one evening after dinner. You’ve walked past the bookshop many times in the years following your purchase (well, technically  _ theft _ ) of  _ Ex Altiora, _ but never once been inside. After all, the last time you were there, you’d gotten exactly what you wanted. And, though you’d obviously kept your flat, there was little reason to return to Chichester after that.

Lion Street Books is exactly as you remember it. A small, compact exterior gives way to a tunnel of bookshelves within, shelves that you could get lost in. It’s maintained the antique stylings that drew you in all those years ago, the sort of aesthetic tone that manages to convey both comfort and mystery.

It’s a pity that your memories of this place are tarnished by the desperation and terror that characterized your hunt for the perfect book. It’s really quite a nice store.

You stop just before you reach the shop, pulling Michael to the side of the street.

“You looking for a book?” Michael asks, clearly not making the connection.

“No, I’m just… I just want to look around in that store. For curiosity’s sake. But you have to promise me two things.”

“Okay?”

“First, I really,  _ really _ do not want to be noticed by the shopkeeper. You’ll notice him coming in, probably—short, grey-haired, beared, awful fashion sense. Help me avoid him.”

“If you say so.”

“Second, if you see  _ anything _ that says ‘From the library of Jurgen Leitner’—”

Michael, unexpectedly, giggles. You raise an eyebrow.

“What. I assume you’ve heard of him?”

“Oh, I just have a funny Jurgen Leitner story. I’ll tell you later. By the way, did you know he was murdered recently?”

“Good god, really? That’s a shame. Well, I guess he had it coming.” You pause, taking in the glee on Michael’s face. “Wait a second,  _ you _ didn’t murder Leitner, did you??”

He breaks into a fit of laughter. “No! No, I didn’t, but wouldn’t that be hilarious? However, you could say I was…  _ involved _ in the incident.”

“Is this your ‘funny Jurgen Leitner story’?”

“Yes!”

“I’m excited to hear it. Didn’t even know he was still alive, honestly.”

“And now he isn’t anymore. But what were you saying? You really think we’ll find a Leitner in here?”

“I mean, I highly doubt there’ll be one just hanging around on the shelves. The man here knows his shit when it comes to rare books. But if you do see one, I would very much like to steal it.”

“What, looking for  _ Ex Altiora _ vol. 2?”

The comment stings for some reason. You brush it off. “Simply because of spite. I’ve given this place too much money. I would very much like to take some back if possible.”

Michael looks at you with curiosity, but doesn’t ask any questions. You don’t remember how much you told him about  _ Ex Altiora. _ The Distortion had a tendency to  _ know _ things he probably shouldn’t, and you have no idea if that knowledge (or intuition, more like) has passed to this version of Michael.

The two of you peer into the bookshop. It looks like the owner is not at the front desk right now, an observation that makes you breathe a little easier. What was his name again? Herbert Knox? Awful name, really. You don’t know why you remember that; it’s not like you made any effort to learn it.

Maybe this is a challenge. To sneak around without getting caught. See how much nostalgia you can allow yourself to indulge in.

You beckon Michael into the store, passing through the glass doors that have always seemed a little too heavy. You almost expect the lights to burn brighter, or the familiar scent of ozone to creep into your perception, but thankfully the only thing it smells like is old books. It’s warm and musty, though the space, with its high ceiling, doesn’t feel too cramped. Nevertheless, you feel yourself tense up. The only other visible customer is a middle-aged woman studying the general fiction section. Soft voices sound from somewhere off to the right; you suppose that’s where you’ll find Mr. Knox.

Right off the bat you locate two volumes in the front display that you would have been drawn to when you were still book-hunting. One is an old copy of one of Dion Fortune’s non-fiction works on occultism, and one is a Latin text on demonology. You’re no longer all that interested in either of those subjects, but you can’t help feeling another pang of nostalgia at the memory of a bygone fascination. Even if it all started from the desperate search prompted by your supernatural pursuer, you  _ were _ genuinely interested, and often read each book you purchased cover to cover before selling it off again for a more ridiculous price than the one for which you’d bought it.

“Mike,” whispers Michael. The voices down the hall are getting closer. You snap out of it, and dart into the poetry section at the opposite end of the store.

From your vantage point, you watch Mr. Knox slip back into the chair at his desk. He appears to be explaining something in great detail to some poor student who looks like she just wants to buy her book (a history of Medieval medicine, you think?) and leave. He’s exactly how you remember him. A little older, maybe a little less hair. Still with that pretentious aura about him.

“Do you just not want to be noticed at all?” asks Michael.

“Not if I can help it.” You indicate your scar. “He’d recognize me instantly.”

It occurs to you that you could have turned your newfound power against him a long time ago, punished him for bearing witness to your transformation. Intruding on a private ritual between you and the Vast and the deceitful, arcing lightning. But no, you are not one for revenge, much as he would have been a convenient target.

And still, trying to recall that night is like reaching out to touch a hallucination. If you focused hard enough, could you remember the words to your incantation? Where they came from? Some were surely copied from your books, many from  _ Ex Altiora _ itself. It was another time; you were another person. Still so caught up in the power of words and language—which saved you, yes, but there was so much else out there. Endless space that could never have a name, and thereby was all the more powerful.

“Are you all right?” comes Michael’s voice.

“Just reminiscing,” you mutter.

Coming here again was probably a stupid idea, but you journey deeper into the shelves anyway, squaring your shoulders to prepare for the impact of new memories. You’ve scoured these hundreds of times. There’s still a huge stain on the carpet in the middle of the sci-fi section. The handwritten signage is yellow and peeling. Funny, how you stopped to notice these details even in your impatient mindset back then.

“I think I’ll go check out the philosophy section,” says Michael, and wanders off, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

And Michael was there, wasn’t he? In the before and the after. Pulling you into a twisting conversation, tempting you back towards the clutches of the Spiral that had laid claim to you years before, even as you wrapped yourself up in the Vast. Kissing you at the edge of a rooftop. That sure made you feel alive.

It’s so funny that you ended up like this. What would your younger self say if he saw you now?

Oh. No, you don’t want to think about that.

You plop down on a stool right in front of the architecture section, staring at the floor. You always hated this carpet. Ugly shade of orange.

_ You finally got your escape, _ says your younger self, with his thick jackets and high collars and long scarfs.  _ And all the sacrifice—your broken, crumbling home, your new scars, all the loss—it was worth it in the end. You sealed that which hunted you and freed yourself from everything. Law, morality, humanity. Gravity. Fear. And then what? Caught by a true Hunter and cast off into the opposite of freedom. And now you’re back where I started, quite literally. Do you know how many people I killed to get where you are today? And you’re trying to tell me you  _ don’t _ want to return to the loving embrace of the Vast? _

“Excuse me?” stammers an all-too familiar voice from behind you.

Everything swells up inside you like gushing rainwater chafing at the edges of your distended mind. You whirl around and meet the wide, confused eyes of Herbert Knox, and, as quickly and instinctively as a wave breaks, plunge him into the abyss. He falls to his knees, gasping from the rush of vertigo, desperate hands clinging to the shelves on either side of him.

It feels  _ good. _

And suddenly it all overflows and drains away and both of you resurface from the flood. Your head spins. You curl your fingers around the edges of the stool and hold on for dear life, staring at the shopkeeper on the floor before you.

“Sorry,” you say faintly.

Mr. Knox is breathing in shallow bursts. He pushes himself up so he’s sitting leaning against the shelf, gaping at you.

“Mike Crew?” he manages after a minute.

You nod.

“I thought you were—I saw you—”

“It turns out I’m rather good at not dying.”

He closes his eyes, concentrating on regaining his stolen breath. There is, admittedly, some vindictive pleasure in seeing him struggling, but most of all you just feel exhausted. And not even from your call to the Vast.

“What brings you back here?” he says. “Come to buy another book? I’d be happy to—ah—” He coughs. “—Give you some recommendations, if you’ve gotten bored of, what was it?  _ Ex Altiora.” _

He chuckles weakly. You don’t.

_ “Ex Altiora’s _ gone. You won’t be getting it back.”

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

“A shame. Such an odd book.”

You almost want to laugh at that. He’s not wrong. “It was. And I’ll decline your offer of recommendations, if you don’t mind. I’ve already gotten what I needed.”

“You’re talkative today,” Mr. Knox remarks. “A lot can happen in a few years, hmm? How have you been doing?”

“And you’re talkative for a man who’s just been plummeting at terminal velocity.”

“Stranger things have happened to me around you.”

Anger pulses through you for a split second. Of course he would remember the chase through the rain, the belltower and the Lichtenberg Figure. Of course he would and you wouldn’t, not properly.

“I told the Magnus Institute about you, actually,” he continues.

“Right.”

“Have you ever been to their Archives? Incredible—”

“I think I’m as familiar with the Magnus Archives as I need to be.”

Mr. Knox purses his lips, sitting up a bit straighter. He’s quiet for a moment before he says slowly, “Truth be told, I still think about you sometimes.”

“You do.”

“You didn’t think I’d forget the mysterious regular to my bookstore who leapt from the top of the cathedral belltower, would you?”

“I suppose things like that don’t happen every day, do they. To most people.”

“I assume it isn’t worth asking you for any sort of explanation?”

That was what you disliked about him. Prying. Always prying a little more than you were comfortable with.

“I’m not going to give you one, no.”

“A pity.”

The two of you sit in silence for what feels like a long time. Neither tries to stand. You kind of wish Michael would return to break you out of this awkwardness, but he’s probably engrossed in some ancient, nerdy text by now.

Maybe this is crueller than just sending Mr. Knox off into the Vast. Refusing him closure, stubbornly remaining a mystery.

Michael does come back eventually, three books under his arm. He comes to a standstill a couple feet behind you, but you can sense him there at the edge of your vision, watching. Waiting patiently.

Finally, the two of you stand up and start walking back to the front desk. Michael’s in his sunflower skirt today, and Mr. Knox keeps squinting at him like he’s trying to discern the gender of the tall partner you’ve brought with you. You pay for Michael’s books without a word.

“You asked me how I was doing,” you say finally, just before you leave the store. “I’d say I’m doing okay right now. Have a nice evening.”

You take Michael’s hand and walk out the door, and don’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> diving back into mike's backstory is both very interesting and very sad. i had a lot of fun conceiving this chapter!
> 
> oh also i should mention - i'm on tumblr at https://distortedspiral.tumblr.com/ ! come say hi


	9. On Communication?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> https://i.imgur.com/1vpCqEa.jpg?fb

From: Simon Fairchild  
To: Michael Crew   
Date: 27 June 2017   
Subject: A Funny Meme

Dear Mike,

I was recently scouring the depths of the Internet and happened upon this meme! It made me think of you:

Isn’t it hilarious? Utterly incomprehensible - much like the sky itself! You know, I always chuckle to myself when I see these sorts of things. The awe that the sky inspires in regular humans! It is so big that in order to wrap their minds around it, they must conceive of it as something tangible. But you and me, we know how is _really_ touch the sky, eh? ;-)

I also found a ‘remix’ version that delighted me:

Have you ever played Skyrim, Mike? The title alone should make you curious! It is an ‘open world’ game, my favourite type of video game! I think it’s particularly funny that someone should translate this ‘meme’ into the language of Skyrim! Because…..SKY!

Best regards,  
Simon Fairchild

* * *

From: Michael Crew  
To: Simon Fairchild   
Date: 27 June 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

Hi Simon.

First of all, thanks for the meme. I’m glad it made you laugh. I’m not much of a gamer, so I haven’t played Skyrim, but maybe I’ll check it out sometime.

The fact that you sent me this message tells me you’re fully aware that I’m alive. That’s good—I wasn’t sure how to best contact you to let you know that fact, but I suppose Jude Perry was able to fill you in. (Apparently you’re buddies now? I have to say I’m surprised.) I know you’re very busy, but if possible it would be nice to grab drinks sometime and catch up the next time you’re in Chichester.

At the end of April, a woman who I believe is aligned with the Hunt beat me up and buried me alive. The Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute was also involved in this incident, though he was more of an annoyance than an actively antagonistic presence. I know you have some ties with the Magnus Institute, so if you were feeling up to writing a strongly worded email on my behalf, I wouldn’t stop you (as long as you didn’t mention I’m still alive—I’m not sure I want them to know that).

I spent a little under two months in a half-alive state, slowly being consumed by the Buried. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what a hell that was. Fortunately, a friend of mine rescued me before it was too late, but the experience has permanently affected me and my connection to the Falling Titan has grown far too weak. I’m having trouble focusing on the ‘big picture’ so to speak, and many of the beliefs I held about my personality, my identity, and my values have shifted in small but terrifying ways.

I know it isn’t exactly your ‘style’ to sit down and offer advice, but I’m feeling lost, and not in a good way. And I know that these troubles don’t really matter in the long run, but they sure feel like they matter to me. The Buried has a way of making you feel very aware of yourself. The bottom line is, you’re my friend and when it comes down to it I don’t want to be left behind.

I think that’s all I have to say for now. Looking forward to talking more.

Thanks,  
Mike

PS: just noticed your profile pic. do I even want to ask who that anime girl is?

* * *

From: Simon Fairchild  
To: Michael Crew   
Date: 29 June 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

Hello Mike,

Ah! You have a good eye! To be entirely honest, I have no idea who the young woman in the picture is. I might have known at some point, but that information has completely exited my brain!

It may be that I uploaded the picture as a joke some years ago and simply forgot to change it. That’s just like me, isn’t it! :-D

Best,  
Simon Fairchild

* * *

From: Michael Crew  
To: Simon Fairchild   
Date: 29 June 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

thank you for responding simon but please respond to more of my message than just the part about the anime girl

\- mike

* * *

From: Simon Fairchild  
To: Michael Crew   
Date: 30 June 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

Mike, I just had a HILARIOUS idea. What if - I told people to ‘imagine how is touch the sky’ instead of ‘enjoy sky blue’ ? Do you think that would freak them out more? Or, do you think they would just find it silly?

Anyway, I’m sorry you’ve been feeling like that. The Buried is no fun at all! I hate dirt - it really gets everywhere, doesn’t it? Hopefully you’ll be back on your feet - or off your feet, in the air, haha! - in no time!

Drinks in Chichester sounds good...I’ll pop by someday if I remember! Maybe you can introduce me to your, ‘friend’ ;-)

Best,  
Simon Fairchild

PS: I asked around. Apparently the woman in my profile picture is from ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion,’ which is quite a name for a show.

* * *

From: Michael Crew  
To: Simon Fairchild   
Date: 30 June 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

Grand. Thanks for your response; it means a lot to me.

I hope I will be ‘back on my feet’ soon, but the reality is that these things take some time to come to terms with. Right now I’m just filled with all sorts of questions. What does the Vast want from me? If I don’t feed it, will it consume me? And what will feeding it really do for me? It may have eased my Spiral trauma but the Buried is an entirely different beast.

\- Mike

* * *

From: Simon Fairchild  
To: Michael Crew   
Date: 1 July 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

Ah, but Mike, you’re forgetting one very important fact! The Vast - it doesn’t care about you! It doesn’t _want_ anything from you - if it does, that thing is something we cannot comprehend! And that’s the thrill of it all, isn’t it? It doesn’t really matter what we do. You can feed it or you can not feed it. If you feed it, your connection will grow, and - well, I don’t exactly need to explain to you the wonderful powers of a fully realized Avatar of the Vast, do I? ;-)

If the sky no longer calls to you, Mike, I’m not sure what I can do for you. You sound like someone consumed with fear. Fear of…...the Fears themselves?? That’s rather silly isn’t it? And sad...I remember when you were so joyful. So excited about the possibilities! Endless possibilities! And the freedom! And your beloved vertigo.

I’m not sure where I was going with this. Advice, maybe??? Well, I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’re a capable young man.

Best,  
Simon Fairchild

PS: I know you are not a ‘gamer,’ but I have thought of another video game I think you will enjoy. It’s called ‘Minecraft’. The game generates an infinite world for you to play with! Absolutely sublime!

* * *

From: Michael Crew  
To: Simon Fairchild   
Date: 2 July 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

Thanks for all your advice. I’ll definitely be thinking more about this.

And Minecraft is a fantastic game. I can see why you like it!

One more thing, just because I’m curious—what do you know about the Distortion?

\- Mike

* * *

From: Simon Fairchild  
To: Michael Crew   
Date: 2 July 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

Hmmm….not much. An aspect of the Spiral, but one that has its own identity, now, apparently? Seems like no fun to be a hallway, don’t you think? Plus, being trapped in there would be horrid! I hope you’ve managed to stay clear of it.

* * *

From: Michael Crew  
To: Simon Fairchild   
Date: 2 July 2017   
Subject: Re: A Funny Meme

okay, thanks for the advice simon :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> source for that meme image that is definitely a skyrim reference: https://t3zzy.tumblr.com/post/47202754486/its-imagine-how-is-touch-the-sky-in-alternian


	10. On Curiosity and Exits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can call me Helen,” she says suddenly, and holds out a hand. Helen. Right. Unsure what else to do, you take it, feeling the uncanny way in which the not-bones shift inside it, too disconnected from the mask of her skin. Noticing your grimace, she adds, “Sorry. I can’t really help it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's another chapter i've had in the back of my mind for a while!

You wake to the sensation of shuffling underneath you. It doesn’t take long to realize that Michael is awake and trying to move. You’re laying on his chest with your arms tight around him, and when he gently takes your wrist and tries to pull it away, you grumble and strengthen your grip, pushing your face further into the warmth of his shoulder.

Michael’s soft laughter vibrates through you. “I need to get up, Mike.”

“No you don’t,” you mumble.

“I promised you I’d go buy groceries.”

“What, this early in the morning?”

“It’s 10.”

You groan and release him. He giggles, kissing the top of your head, then sits up and slides off the bed. Parts of his hair are sticking up all frizzy; the morning light from the window illuminates single strands as they jump away from his head.

“I have to get out of your hair _sometimes,”_ he says.

“Maybe later then. Get back here.”

“I’m flattered, but if I come and cuddle with you any more, I am absolutely going to fall back asleep.”

You force yourself to sit up, watching as Michael plucks clothes from the side of the drawer that you’ve both decided is dedicated to his things. “Been trying to get up earlier, have you?”

“Yes. Like _you._ What happened to waking up at 9?”

“Hard when you have someone you want to stay in bed with.”

He flushes a bit, then leans over and gives you a quick kiss before disappearing out of the bedroom, bundle of clothes in hand.

All right, now that he’s awake, you suppose you should probably get your own lazy ass out of bed as well. You traipse into the kitchen and make yourself some tea and a crumpet for breakfast. Noticing Michael’s shopping list on the counter, you grab a pen and add _marmite_ and _blackberry jam_ to the end of it.

Once Michael’s gone, you settle into your regular morning routine. Get changed, check your email, respond to whatever Simon Fairchild sent you at an absurd hour in the morning. You don’t care enough about the rest of the world to look at the news. As far as you’re concerned, the world doesn’t extend far beyond Chichester. Well, maybe to London. But you’re enjoying your relative isolation. Just you and Michael in your flat. Nice and cozy.

It’s about ten minutes later that a quiet knock sounds at the door.

You instantly freeze. It’s an instinctive reaction at this point—Jude’s visit cemented into your brain the fact that people at the door means trouble. But no one’s calling up through the wire this time. No buzzing doorbell. Is Michael back for some reason? Is it just Lucille again, come to gift you more baked goods?

When you peer into the front room and see a yellow door affixed to the wall where there most certainly was _not_ one minutes earlier, your heart stops.

Every emotion welling up inside you merges to form a horrid, jittering ball of anxiety and pure static. You stare and stare at the door that is achingly familiar yet incredibly distant, sitting there so innocently. Masquerading as another entrance into your home. Or maybe an exit.

“Well?” you call into the empty air. “I’m not going to open you, you know. Show yourself.”

The door creaks open with a deluge of static, then quietly closes. The being who has stepped out… well, she _looks_ like a person. She’s in a bright purple business suit that could conceivably be something a real person would wear. She has dark brown skin and wide, searching eyes and painted fingernails but you’re not sure what color they are. Her black hair is short and curly, twisting itself into spirals. There’s a name tag pinned to her shirt. You can’t tell what it says, and when you try to remember what her name might be, the white noise in your mind gets louder.

“Mike Crew?” Her voice is calm, even, and somehow quieter than you might have expected. You think you detect a hint of nervousness.

“How did you find me.”

“I can find anyone who’s entered my corridors.”

“You’re not getting Michael back,” is your immediate response. It comes out harsh, like a command. Good. Better to let her know exactly who she’s dealing with.

“No, no, I… waited until he was away. I don’t think I want to see him. Not yet.”

You pause, the tide of anger flowing out of you. “You don’t?”

The Distortion shakes her head.

“Well, good, I guess. I don’t think he wants to see you either.”

She doesn’t respond to that. She takes a couple steps away from her door, eyes flitting around the room. Her gaze rests for a long moment on Michael’s old coat, the one he wore to Sannikov Land, the one with the map tucked carefully into its pocket. You sense a strange hesitancy about her, an entirely different temper than the one you detected from the Distortion when it was Michael.

“You can call me Helen,” she says suddenly, and holds out a hand. _Helen._ Right. Unsure what else to do, you take it, feeling the uncanny way in which the not-bones shift inside it, too disconnected from the mask of her skin. Noticing your grimace, she adds, “Sorry. I can’t really help it.”

“It’s okay,” you murmur, and release her hand. It felt better when it was Michael. Why did it feel better then? It’s the same sensation.

Helen still looks apologetic. She blinks a couple times, then focuses back on you. Her eyes have… a different texture than they’re supposed to, you think.

“How are you?” she asks.

“I’m—fine.”

“How’s Michael?”

“Okay. Better than he was.”

Her mouth twists in discomfort and sympathy. “I’m sure it was a hard adjustment. He was me for so long.”

“Yeah.”

You just sort of stand there, a couple feet apart. Your heart is still pounding. It occurs to you that you expected Helen to be taller. Maybe it was just that Michael Shelley was naturally tall, or maybe Helen hasn’t bothered to mess much with her body shape.

“Who were you?” you ask when the silence has become just a bit too awkward. You don’t particularly _want_ to talk, but—well, you’ll indulge her. “Who was _Helen?”_

“Not much of anyone, really. A real estate agent. Someone rather familiar with the opening of doors. The perfect wanderer. And yet…”

She sighs, and breaks eye contact, tangling her fingers together in a worried knot.

“Do you… like being her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t particularly like being Michael, did you.”

“No, I didn’t. I wasn’t meant to be Michael. Or Helen. Things like this are… difficult. I think I should be grateful that I’ve moved on from all Michael’s feelings. They got in the way sometimes.”

“His feelings about Gertrude Robinson?”

“And the Great Twisting. I… do feel sorry for him, I think.”

“Well, he’s… he’s recovering.”

She smiles. “I’m glad to hear it.”

You almost want to ask her if it was on purpose—if she knew she would be replacing him, if she knew he would be expelled from the Distortion in the way he was. But judging by the way she’s been speaking about her own becoming, you somehow doubt that’s the case. It’s not her fault. Well. It is, technically. But you can’t find it in you to hold a grudge.

“Why are you here?” you try instead.

“I wanted to see you.”

“Why me?”

“I liked you.”

It’s so very strange to hear that gentleness in the voice of a stranger, a woman who you have never seen before in your life but who looks at you like an estranged friend.

“Michael did,” you correct. “Does.”

“Yes. But Michael was the Distortion and now Helen is the Distortion, and the Distortion liked you, in some sort of way. What, do you think I wouldn’t remember all the fun things we did together?”

You try to splutter out some retort, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward, but Helen’s laughter cuts you off. It’s soft and friendly, and its otherworldly echo makes your heart ache with nostalgia.

“No, silly, I’m not trying to hit on you. I know very well how _Michael_ feels about you. But is it so strange that my feelings towards you would also be amicable?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

“Because you think you don’t know me.”

“I don’t!”

“I guess you don’t. But… it’s hard to make distinctions like this. You understand.”

“Sure.”

It’s… odd, talking to the Distortion again. You’ve never allowed yourself to imagine an interaction like this taking place, imagine a world in which you conversed with a Distortion who was not Michael. What were you expecting? A tall, giggling almost-person who swept you up in a torrent of spiralling words? That same confusion, the pleasant buzzing in your head? Sharp fingers and impossible eyes that focused for too long on the fractal carved into your flesh? Michael had lost something when he became human again. Shouldn’t _this_ Distortion have kept his missing half?

“You aren’t lying to me, are you?” You try to make it sound like a point of curiosity rather than an accusation.

Her brow furrows. “No! Why would I be?”

“You’re a being of deception.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Mike.”

“That’s… okay. Okay, that’s good, I guess.”

Maybe she hasn’t yet grown into her new identity. Or maybe—maybe the Distortion clashes differently with each identity it _becomes._ Maybe they merge together to become something more than they ever were separately. Maybe Michael the Distortion was a wholly unique being who could never be manufactured again.

It hurts, for some reason. That you’re never going to meet that version of Michael again. That something was lost in translation, and now all you have is memories. Is that a kind of death?

“So you just wanted to say hi,” you say after a second.

“Yes. Well.”

“What?”

“I,” she begins, and stops, face scrunching up in an expression that seems… genuine, in a way that only a human could manage. It takes you a second to identify why it unnerves you. If this were anyone other than the Distortion, you wouldn’t give her plain, candid confusion a second thought. But here, now? You honestly think you might pity her, caught in this strange space between person and monster. A _cyborg,_ Michael would say.

“I think,” Helen says finally, “that I was mostly curious about Michael.”

“But you said you didn’t want to see him?”

“Yes. Yes, I know. Because, to be perfectly honest, I think he scares me. There is something existentially terrifying about the fact that he exists, and I’m not sure I could put my finger on the reason.”

“Because he represents something that could happen to you? Are you scared of the Distortion rejecting you?”

“N-no, it’s… it’s more that he represents… or _could_ represent the fact that Michael wasn’t, wasn’t _absorbed_ fully, so to speak. No, that isn’t quite—what I mean to say is that Helen was better than Michael. Helen doesn’t have all his… emotional baggage. If I must have an identity then I would rather have hers. And I thought she was ready to _become_ me, because that’s how I work now, I guess, thanks to Gertrude. But I don’t… I don’t quite…”

There’s legitimate pain on her face now as she stumbles through her words, trying to get a grasp on a concept that was never meant to be understood, much less explained.

“I still don’t get why you’re scared of Michael.”

“Me neither!”

“Is it that you’re scared of what the Distortion could turn you into?”

“I _am_ the Distortion.”

You take a deep breath. “Right.”

“I—I _want_ to talk to him. I want to understand him. I… you know what I think? I think I want him to tell me how to be… myself. Because he is the only one who could ever understand.”

“From what _I_ understand, the circumstances of your becoming were very different.”

“But he knows what it is like to be me.”

You almost laugh as one of Michael’s philosophical tangents comes back to you. “But he doesn’t. Because he isn’t you. Can’t ever know the subjective experience of another consciousness, right? Even if that consciousness is one you used to participate in?”

Helen smiles weakly. “He’s rubbed off on you.”

“God, I guess he has.”

“You know what I mean, though. He would have a better idea than anyone.”

“He would. But, again. I doubt he’d want to speak with you.”

“No,” she replies, defeated. “No, I suppose not.”

You settle into another silence, a longer one this time. Helen shows no sign of leaving. You have no idea how long it’s been—when’s Michael going to be back with groceries? What if he walks in and finds you here, conversing with the Distortion, the thing that cast him into his new existence?

“Do you want some tea?” you say finally, and Helen’s face brightens.

“Ooh, yes. Do you have oolong?”

“Sure.”

It’s quiet while you brew her a cup. Do the effects of caffeine work on a Distortion? Well, you don’t suppose she sleeps. Helen wanders around your flat, always staying within your line of sight, not touching anything. More curiosity, you suppose.

You don’t let the tea steep for nearly long enough—you guess you’re just impatient—but Helen seems to like it anyway. She thanks you and begins to head back to the front room, but stops before she reaches her door.

“He doesn’t… hate me, does he?” she says slowly, voice creeping up an octave as it grows more tentative.

“No, I don’t think so. For what, replacing him?”

“For any of it. For what I did to his life.”

“I think he blames Gertrude for a lot of that.”

“Hm.”

“What? Do you think _you’re_ at fault?” The idea of the Distortion apologizing for Michael’s trauma is… rather appalling. Laughable, to say the least. “Why do you care how he feels?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re—you’re an eldritch deceit being.” Again, it’s the weakest possible argument, but you’re not over how _human_ Helen seems.

“Yes. And I can be compassionate. I can recognize that mistakes were made. That… that things are complicated. I just want what’s best for you. And Michael.”

There’s a strained quality to her voice. Maybe she really is just clinging to what remains of her humanity, digging her fingers into it too deep before it inevitably turns to something wispy and intangible. Maybe she, like Michael, will embrace her monstrosity before long. How long until the Spiral’s influence fully takes root in her mind? How long until she realizes that so many of her questions have no answers?

And yet you want to believe that she is how she is for a reason. That one can be an avatar of fear and still love, still care, fully and openly.

“Thanks,” is all you end up saying. “That means a lot to me.”

She nods, and smiles, and exits through her dizzying door.

* * *

Michael’s back with groceries about ten minutes later, and the sound of the door opening almost makes you jump out of your skin. You’ve been scrolling aimlessly through the internet, trying to distract yourself from your mounting anxiety at the prospect of his return. So when Michael plops down his bags in the kitchen and finds you sitting hunched on the living room couch, you mumble a greeting and return your eyes to your phone, hoping that he doesn’t notice anything amiss.

Unfortunately, you’ve been living together for two weeks, and a lack of emotional perception on his part is perhaps more than you can hope for.

“Is something wrong?” asks Michael immediately.

“Tired,” you mutter, as if your heart isn’t racing.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

His brows knit together, mouth flattening into a line. “Mike, I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

A jolt of fear tears through your chest. “I—it’s fine. Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Really.”

“I don’t want to upset you.”

“I’m sure learning about the dread powers of fear would have _upset_ Michael Shelley too. Fortunately, his boss saw fit to keep that knowledge from him.”

He’s playing _that_ card already? God, does he really think it’s that important? Perhaps you look more anxious than you thought. You sit up, finally meeting Michael’s eyes. He stands a couple paces in front of you, poised as if bracing for whatever you’re about to tell him.

“I had another visitor,” you say slowly.

He blinks, nods. “Who?”

“Helen.”

Silence.

“She said she wanted to say hi.”

Michael is as still as a statue, and his eyes are as wide and as blank as if they were made of stone.

“Oh,” he breathes.

“She was… really nice, actually. We… chatted. She asked how you were.”

“What did you say?”

You shrug.

“I…” Michael slowly sits himself down on the couch right next to you, staring off into the distance, farther than the blank walls of your flat. His mouth is slightly open. “I don’t think I know how to feel about this.”

“If it’s any consolation, I was also fairly confused.”

“It’s… strange. To think that the Distortion is still out there.” He blinks, looks at you. “Was she anything like me?”

“Not at all.”

“Huh.” He settles in, leans back against the couch, searching for the right words. “It’s like having a long lost sibling. I… _knew_ her. I observed her in every step of her journey. I knew that we were beginning to vibrate on the same wavelength, that our colors were bleeding together, and all I could think was that I was… proud of her? That she would be such a wonderful _avatar_ of the Spiral.”

“And you think she betrayed you?”

“No. I think I was foolish. And a series of mistakes and coincidences led her to my final door. And you know the rest.”

“I… don’t think I _do_ know the rest, actually.” He’s never explained, not fully. And you decided you knew better than to ask.

Michael chuckles. “Really! Well, how’s this. I gave the Archivist a door.” The smile slips off his face as quickly as it had appeared there, and his expression grows dark, voice quiet and faltering. “An exit, a way into oblivion. But, unbeknownst to me, it was not for him. It was for Helen. It was _her_ exit, her final threshold. And, in my panic and my confusion, my recognition that I had strayed too far, given too much of myself to the Watcher, maybe—I was overwhelmed—my control was slipping—”

He chokes up suddenly, clamps a hand over his mouth. You inch closer, leaning against him. Maybe your weight will ground him in the present.

How had Helen put it? _Michael’s feelings… got in the way sometimes._

“And so I opened up my own door,” continues Michael, voice watery, “and it tore me apart. And that is the story.”

“And now you’re here, and Helen is the Distortion.”

“Yes.”

You exhale slowly, focusing your gaze somewhere on the floor. “I told her you didn’t want to talk with her.”

The breath catches in Michael’s throat. “She wanted to talk with me?”

“Sort of.”

“Why?” His voice is almost bitter. “She doesn’t need me anymore. What good would it do to call upon a failure?”

“First of all, no self-hatred allowed. Second, she’s just… confused. Doesn’t know who she is.”

That makes him laugh. “Perfect.”

“Michael.”

“What? That’s what it does. The sooner she accepts she isn’t a _who_ anymore, the better.”

“I _also,”_ you say pointedly, “told her that you don’t hate her. It would be too bad to have to amend that statement.”

“I don’t hate her.”

“Sure.”

“No, I really don’t. I am just… sad. Frustrated. I keep telling myself that I’m over it. And then I remember her beautiful, painful becoming—how it feels to be cleaved in two like that—and I realize that the scars on my mind still haven’t faded. My phantom limbs are aching, but they are the size of rooms and staircases and hallways.”

“Maybe we should get you a non-euclidean mirror box.”

It’s honestly not all that funny, but Michael actually chokes at that, his entire body shaking with quiet laughter. Well, anything that makes him happy you’d consider a successful joke. He puts an arm around your shoulder and nuzzles his cheek against the top of your head.

“Maybe,” he begins when his giggles have faded, “if she turns up again, I’ll speak with her. I think I can give up my Distortion angst for long enough to… do that.”

“I think she’d appreciate that.”

He nods, lost in thought.

“She said she liked me,” you recall. “Because—she’s the Distortion. She has your memories.”

“Oh?” He quirks an amused eyebrow. “She’s not going to steal you from me, is she?”

You chuckle. “No, not like _that._ She just… considers us friends, I guess. It’s strange.”

Michael jumps. It’s so sudden that you have to stifle a yell. He glances over at your panicked face and grins, looking animated in a way that you haven’t seen from him in a while.

“I just thought of a very good comparison.”

 _“What?_ God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Have you ever seen Star Trek?”

“No??”

He gives you a faux disappointed glare. “I think Michael Shelley might have dumped you for that. Listen. There’s an alien in Deep Space Nine called Dax. They’ve got these… hosts, with whom they have a symbiotic relationship. When one host dies, Dax—they’re like a big worm who lives in your body, no, I know what you’re thinking, not like the Flesh Hive—when one host dies, they take Dax out and transfer them to the next host. Each host is their own personality, but once they become Dax they get Dax’s memories and maintain Dax’s past relationships.”

He stops all of a sudden and looks at you expectantly.

“I think you’re an even bigger nerd than I thought you were.”

“Says the man who used to read ancient books on occultism for fun. I am a connoisseur of high culture. Do you get it?”

“Yeah, so the Distortion is the worm and you and Helen are its hosts.”

“Like I’m Curzon Dax, and Helen is Jadzia Dax, and you’re Sisko because Curzon and Sisko were friends and then Jadzia was friends with him too because—”

“I think that I would be very impressed with that connection if I understood the reference.”

He shrugs. “It’s not perfect. But it’s interesting to think about, isn’t it? What am I to Helen? Our relationship is not one that could be encompassed by any human familial terms. There is something rather exciting about that, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I see what you mean. It is interesting.”

You sit there for another quiet minute. You nestle your head back into the crook of Michael’s neck; you can feel his heartbeat slowing down as he relaxes. He absent-mindedly rubs his thumb against your shoulder, pulling you close to him.

“Would you like to see the groceries I bought?” asks Michael after a while. “They didn’t have blackberry jam, so I got raspberry, if that’s all right.”

You haul yourself off the couch and stretch. “Yeah, that’s great. Thanks.”

“You’ll have to give me a full list of your preferred flavors. Choosing was very difficult.”

“Blueberry is right out. Anything else is fine.”

“How do you feel about marmalade?”

“That’s good too.”

“Michael Shelley used to consume entire jars of marmalade,” he says thoughtfully.

“What, by itself??”

“Yes?”

“I hope you won’t be continuing that habit.”

“Hmm. We’ll see.”

Michael leads you into the kitchen. Most of the things he’s bought are regular grocery materials—eggs, milk, frozen meals, fresh fruit, crisps, various snacks. There are two jars of raspberry jam and two jars of marmalade, which _might_ be overkill unless what Michael says about his marmalade consumption is true. Honey and marmite and nutella, all good to have. Three raw potatoes, which… you guess he’s planning to bake? Does he know how to cook? And finally, a slightly worrying amount of coriander, which you have an awful feeling might be another unusual snack inherited from Mr. Shelley.

“This is a lot,” you remark.

“Tesco is very exciting.”

“Really.”

“It’s exciting if you haven’t been grocery shopping in seven years.”

“We should go to the market sometime if you’re so into looking at food. I promise you it beats Tesco.”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I think I’m just warming up to the prospect of _eating_ again. I suppose that’s one of the nice things about having a body.”

You scan the array of groceries. You almost hadn’t noticed it, but the instinctive unease that rose in your stomach for the first few days after you’d returned from the Buried—it’s all but vanished now. Eating for the fun of it—that’s a nice prospect.

Does Helen still eat? She accepted your tea, but you suspect her time in the clutches of the Spiral has siphoned off all those human instincts. Surely that’s easier, but also…

“Yeah,” you reply. “I think it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone gets the "non euclidean mirror box" joke i will be very pleased
> 
> also, i have to say, coming up with Weird Food Habits for michael is a delight


	11. On Tea and Roller Coasters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mike, my boy!” hollers Simon, managing to attract the momentary attention of just about everyone outside the cafe. He leaps over the low row of potted plants that encircles the outdoor seating area and plops down in the seat opposite you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love simon fairchild so much
> 
> a bit belated but - last week's episode inspired me!

From: Simon Fairchild  
To: Michael Crew   
Date: 5 July 2017   
Subject: Meeting Up ???

Dear Mike,

I am back from my excursion to the United States and I am just itching to tell you all about it! :-D Now that I’m little more than a hop, skip, and a jump away from Chichester, do you fancy meeting up to discuss our various life developments? I know you’re more of a ‘tea’ person than a ‘drinks’ person, so: how do you like the sound of meeting tomorrow at teatime in one of your local cafés????

These past few months or so may be only a blip in the grand scheme of things, but even little things can be so much fun. ;-) you will see what I mean soon……..

Best,  
Simon Fairchild

PS: I recall you asking me to write….a ‘strongly worded email’ to the Magnus Institute regarding your treatment at the hands of a Hunter ? Well, I recently did just that! The letter I got in return was rather cryptic...well. I will tell you all about it when we see each other!

* * *

Simon is, predictably, late to your meeting. You text him a couple times, but doubt it’ll do much good—he’s not exactly one to check his messages often, and, depending on the method by which he’s chosen to get here, he may be too distracted to do so. It’s not really a big deal. You sit down at the table you’ve reserved—outside at the front of the cafe, in the corner as far away from the other tables as possible—and resolve to wait. You order some finger sandwiches in the meantime; you’re not above snacking before your companion arrives.

He finally shows up at about 4:30 in the afternoon, half an hour after the scheduled time. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt, suspenders, and a garish blue bow tie that you internally think makes him look a little bit stupid, but you’re not about to mention it. He’s one of the few adult men you’ve met who’s also around 5 foot, yet he commands a remarkable air of authority as he ambles towards you, waving at or complimenting the passers by. His scraggly white hair poofs up in all directions, like a mad scientist or someone in a movie who’s just been struck by lightning. It makes you wonder if _your_ hair did the same when that happened to you.

“Mike, my boy!” hollers Simon, managing to attract the momentary attention of just about everyone outside the cafe. He leaps over the low row of potted plants that encircles the outdoor seating area and plops down in the seat opposite you.

“Hi, Simon,” you murmur after the eyes of the other customers have turned back to their own meals.

His eyes instantly go to the plate of sandwiches before you. “Oh! Mind if I take one? I am positively ravenous! Would you like to know how I got here?” And before you can reply, he snatches up a cucumber sandwich and begins to nibble at it daintily.

“Did you _fly_ in?” you ask, unable to stop yourself from smiling.

“Nope! You know what I did?” He leans in and says in a conspiratorial whisper, “I took the _train._ I know! Why take the train when there are a million other options. Well, you see, I told myself—this is just a normal, friendly trip, and I have got to treat it like one! Can’t be tempted to send a couple people hurtling to their deaths if I’m on a train, can I?”

“That’s a good point.”

“Of course, when I got in, I spotted some people doing construction work on a particularly rickety piece of scaffolding, and had some fun with _them,_ but—hmm, where was I going with this?”

“Would you like me to order you any tea?” you say pointedly.

“Oh, yes, I’ll have… I think I’ll just have some iced tea, if that’s alright with you.”

“Sure,” you reply, and motion the waiter over.

Once you’re done ordering, Simon settles back against his chair and plucks another sandwich off the plate.

“So,” you begin, “you went to the US?”

His eyes light up. “Oh yes! Would you like to guess where?”

You wrack your brains for the names of the tallest mountains in America, and come up blank. You shrug.

“I visited Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey—home to the tallest roller coaster in the world. Now, you see, Mike, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what fun it is to ride a roller coaster. Or to visit an amusement park in general, for that matter! It’s wonderful to be immersed in an environment so chock full of joy and terror. You know, I remember when roller coasters were first invented in their modern form! I flew all the way to New York to see the first famous one. I remember feeling such an immense satisfaction—think of all the humans who would willingly let themselves be marked by the Vast! Incredible! And I hoped that they would stay in fashion.”

“Well, fortunately, they did.”

“Fortunate indeed! That was a couple years after my ritual failed, remember, and this new invention really put me in _high_ spirits. So you can imagine how excited I was to take this trip! I must’ve ridden that roller coaster—and all the others! —at least fifty times. I came back day after day. I think the staff were rather amused by it, at least until I figured out how to sabotage the safety mechanisms. I do hope they get it fixed soon… as much as I’m sure my patron loved its meal, I wouldn’t want to deprive more park-goers of such a terrific experience.”

You nod, thinking of how much fun you had on roller coasters as a child.

“I say, Mike, if you’d ever like help getting out of your Buried rut someday, I’d be more than happy to take you—oh, and your _friend,_ of course—to a fair like that.” He grins when he says _friend_ in a way that makes you roll your eyes. “Ah, I’d almost forgotten to ask! Who is this friend of yours? Have we met?”

“He’s, uh.” A spot of anxiety settles in your stomach; you’re not sure how much you want Simon to know. “His name is Michael too, which is a fun coincidence.”

He chuckles. “Fantastic! I don’t suppose he serves a Fear as well?”

“He’s marked by the Spiral,” you say, choosing your words carefully.

“Ah! Just like you. A match made in heaven, hmm?”

That actually makes you laugh as well, remembering how much the Distortion loved to remind you of your joint Spiral experience. “I suppose so.”

“And now he’s living with you?”

“You’re awfully curious about this for someone who doesn’t believe in close relationships.”

“Oh, come now, that isn’t fair at all. I have plenty of _relationships._ Friends! _You’re_ my friend, Mike! I simply don’t see the point in getting so very attached to someone who is, as we all are, such a tiny, insignificant part of the world! And one who’s going to die in a couple years, anyway.”

His views aren’t new to you in the slightest—hell, you thought the same thing, once—but they still make your stomach twist in discomfort. “True as that may be, I rather like having a significant other.”

He shrugs. “And I’m happy for you! I’m sure you’re _very_ cute together. So, when can I meet him?”

“Um, not yet.”

“Fair enough.” Simon takes another sandwich—an egg one this time. “Hmm, was there anything else we were going to discuss? I’ve quite forgotten.”

The tea comes at that moment. You stir yours as Simon thanks the waiter profusely. Considering whether to mention the “cryptic” email from the Magnus Institute he told you he’d received. _Cryptic_ was a foreboding way to describe it, and as much as you’re dying to know what the Institute thinks of you and your apparent death, the consideration sends shivers down your spine.

“The Magnus Institute got back to you, didn’t they?” is how you put it when you feel the silence has stretched on just slightly too long.

“Oh! Yes.” Simon sets his tea down on the table and fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Now, you’re going to have to show me how to get my email up on here…”

You point him to the correct app, then hold up his phone and read.

_From: Elias Bouchard_   
_To: Simon Fairchild_   
_Date: 3 July 2017_   
_Subject: Re: A Complaint On The Treatment Of Michael Crew_

_Dear Mr. Fairchild,_

_How wonderful it is to hear from you again. Peter tells me you’re still in excellent condition, even after all these years. Please do come visit us sometime; I’m positive that your story would make a wonderful addition to our Archives._

_As for Michael Crew, I am sorry to hear that you have been so disturbed. Please rest assured that the Hunter you speak of was not in any way affiliated with the Magnus Institute when she took these violent actions. However, as it so happens, she has recently begun working for me in, shall we say, a volunteer capacity. If it would make you feel better, I will give her a stern talking to the next time I see her._

_Lastly, please make sure to thank Mike for the scare he gave my Archivist. I am sure that it is no fun to feel like one is falling while attempting to record a statement._

_Kind regards,_

_Elias Bouchard_   
_Head of the Magnus Institute_

“Bastard,” is the first thing you mutter after finishing. “Of course he knows I’m alive. Of course _he_ would.”

Simon looks amused. “I don’t suppose you can hide much from the Beholding, can you? Well, I wouldn’t let it get to you. I doubt they want anything more from you—I say, if you’ve already given them a statement, you’re golden. That’s all the Watcher ever really needs. Stories.”

“Sounds like you’ve never given a statement yourself?”

“Oh, no. I have tried very hard not to. I say, in a world where the Ceaseless Watcher threatens to observe our entire lives, telling the Magnus Archives that I ‘don’t want’ to tell them about the trials and tribulations of my past constitutes heroism.”

You laugh. “Maybe so.”

“Plus, I’m not particularly keen on those nightmares they tell you about. You know, visions of the Archivist looming in your dreams and all that?”

“What?”

“You haven’t been getting those? Hm, maybe the Choking Earth saved you from one thing after all.”

He finishes his tea. You’ve got questions, of course, but none that can’t wait. Besides, you can’t say you’re fond of thinking about the Magnus Institute for too long.

“Now that you’re done with roller coasters,” you say after a moment, “what do you suppose your next project will be?”

“Oh, I never said I was done with roller coasters! I doubt I’ll ever be done with roller coasters. But hmm, my next project… I think I owe Peter a favor, so he might be getting on my case about that sometime. Other than that, who knows? See where the wind blows me!”

“Yeah. It’s nice not to plan.”

“Isn’t it!”

You lean your forearms on the table, staring down into your half-empty teacup. “What should _I_ do, then?”

“Hmm. Do you have a project in mind?”

“Not really.”

“You could always come on a trip with me.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to leave my partner behind.”

“He can come too!”

“I don’t trust you not to throw him off a building or something,” you say with a grin.

“Oh, Mike, I’m not _that_ cruel! I’d catch him before he hit the ground.”

“Good luck. He’s like six and a half foot tall.”

“Good heavens, really?” Simon snickers, crossing his arms. “Can’t imagine he’s afraid of heights, then, in that case. Oh, you know, Mike, I’ve been thinking—you know why both of us avatars of the Vast are so short?”

“Why.”

“Because if we’re small, the universe seems that much bigger!”

“You’ve got a point there,” you admit. “...So, then, I should just, do what. Fuck around and find out?”

“Well, perhaps in less, ah, vulgar terms, but… yes! It’s what I’ve done for 500 years.”

“Alright,” you reply. “Yeah, okay. I think I can do that.”

“Excellent!” Simon leans forward and pats you on the back, eyeing the final sandwich as he settles back into his seat. “Hmm. It’d be terribly rude to take the last one, but… do you mind?”

“I’ve had plenty. Go ahead.”

“Thank you!” He grabs it and smiles at you. “I must say, Mike, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this little catch-up. We have got to keep in touch.”

“I’d be glad to see any more, um, memes you come across.”

“Yes! And… hmm, I’m not sure how exactly to do this, but we should become ‘friends’ on Steam, I think.”

“What, the video game platform?”

His face is startlingly sincere. “Precisely. There’s nothing like losing yourself in a good game, especially if your thoughts are still filled with dirt and mud. Cyberspace is quite vast, too, you know!”

“I’ll consider it.” It’ll be something for you to do with Michael, too. “Yeah, thanks for coming by. It’s nice to chat.”

“It is!” he cries, and finishes off his sandwich.


	12. On Acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But I still don’t…” She breaks eye contact, twisting her fingers together. You wonder if they’re sharp at all. If she could cut herself on them, further alienating herself from her body. “I don’t want to be a monster.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is another chapter that goes pretty heavy into the trauma and existential stuff, so be aware of that. it's also a pretty important chapter in general!
> 
> philosophical theory referenced: "What is it like to be a bat?" by Thomas Nagel ***  
> (more rambling in the end notes)

The summer nights get hotter, and your decision to sleep in your underwear with the window open is becoming more and more practical, though for entirely different reasons than those for which you originally decided to do so. You don’t remember it being this hot normally in summertime—but every place has an unusual weather week every now and then. It’s a damp kind of warmth, courtesy of the nearby sea, one that shifts in gradients but never gives way to a gust of wind. It would be pleasant, you think, if it didn’t lay itself over you so thickly. Air is supposed to be your escape from that which presses on your skin.

Michael doesn’t object when you unbutton his own shirt and pull it off him, watching as his curls bounce back to their original positions atop his shoulders. His eyes are fixed on the open window. It’s silent out there—night has gripped the city and now holds it in perfect stillness.

“Something wrong?” you ask, ghosting your palm across Michael’s back, letting the tips of your fingers brush through his hair.

The light from a passing car falls across his face for a moment. “I don’t think so. I just feel strange.”

He’s been distracted like this since Helen’s visit the other day. He’s made you recount the conversation you had with her so many times that it feels like it’s etched into your brain. You can’t entirely blame him. That urge to  _ know _ still wells up inside him sometimes, sharper than the simple, common desire to hear what’s been said about you behind your back. So he picks up the scraps of knowledge left behind, pulls apart and devours the secondhand account of the thing he used to be.

“You wanna talk about it? Or just sleep?”

He looks back at you, and his vacant expression turns into a small smile as he focuses on your face. Instead of answering, he folds his arms around you and presses you to his chest. You gasp softly. His skin is warm—warm like the night, like something comforting—and his heart beats so slowly. You plant your hands on his back properly and shift yourself into his lap, kissing his neck and his cheek and his lips.

You expect Michael to break away after a few seconds and lay down on the pillow again, but instead his hands find the edges of your face and he pulls you closer, deepening the kiss. Everything about it is so gentle. The way it feels to sit on his thighs and lean into him, feel him as a body and a counterweight. How his nose brushes against yours; how his eyelids flutter. How your fingers find the ridges of his spine and trace them aimlessly. He tastes like the chocolate ice cream you had earlier. When you joked about putting marmalade in it, and he’d actually blushed, like you’d remembered a dirty secret of his.

“God, Michael,” you murmur into his chin. “You really know how to—mmm.” Because he kisses you again, morphing your words into a sigh.

“I think I just missed touching you,” he whispers.

You want to reply that you wake up every day in his embrace, but, well, that’s not like  _ this. _ Not like the slow intimacy of a late-night kiss, so very intentional that it makes your skin burn where his fingers rest, where his hair grazes against your shoulders.

“Feeling better about the Flesh now?” you say, half-joking.

“In all honesty? Yes, I think so.”

He caresses your cheek with the side of his thumb, then kisses your forehead and grins. You settle down against each other, breathing perfectly in sync.

* * *

You almost expect to dream of the Archivist, like Simon said you might. The Archivist, with his eyes that peel away your inhibitions, that reach deep inside of you and pull out squirming words that pulse in a harmony you never thought you were capable of. An omnipresent figure that watches and watches and watches.

Instead you dream of a staircase, and as far up it as you seem to travel, you never seem to go anywhere. You strain and push but your legs aren’t working right, or else the stairs aren’t working right, or else reality isn’t working right.

Which makes sense, maybe, because it is a dream.

And you dream of a cube with a thousand doors carved into its faces, and maybe you are inside of it, or maybe you are outside of it. Not sure whether selecting one and twisting its knob would constitute an exit or an entrance.

And you dream of a cave, but the map you have been given is wrong, and everything leads to a dead end.

* * *

“Is he still asleep?”

You are lying somewhere that you think is your bed, covers pulled up to your waist, cheek pressed deep into the pillow. The room is dark and your head aches like you’ve been underwater for too long. Maybe you’re still underwater, judging by the way sound seems distant and muted as it reaches your ears. Your arms splay out by your sides; you’re no longer held in Michael’s embrace.

Monochrome blobs quiver in your hazy vision, coalescing to form the shape of your partner. He’s sitting up, just beyond your grasp, light ringlets cascading down his bare back. You can’t quite tell what’s in front of him. What he’s looking at.

The world holds its breath. There’s something wrong. Time has continued its steady pace while you were sleeping, and something unearthly has been dredged from its depths.

“I think so,” whispers Michael, and he glances at you over his shoulder. Your eyelids are millimeters apart; you’re not sure if he can tell you’re awake. You’re not even sure  _ you _ can tell you’re awake.

“Okay,” comes the other voice, one that you recognize, one that your groggy brain can’t quite place—especially how it echoes like that, the off-putting dimensionality that hurts your senses.

“He’s a heavy sleeper. I think it has something to do with the Buried.” His voice is so quiet; you hear its wavering quality clearer than you hear the words.

“I truly apologize for the intrusion.”

“It’s okay,” mumbles Michael. It clearly isn’t.

“I… have a tendency to get times mixed up. Suddenly, 3 AM doesn’t seem so different to me than, well, any other hour.”

“I understand. It’s easy to get unstuck from such concepts in there.”

There’s a pause. You hear Helen— _ Helen! _ —pacing. Somehow no panic response has kicked in yet; you accept this visitation as readily as you would a dream.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

“No.”

A breath. “I—I’m sorry. He said I shouldn’t come talk to you, and—”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“—and I tried, I really did, but I think I was—lonely.”

“Lonely.”

“Yes.”

“You contain so much space. Countless wanderers roam your halls.” Michael’s voice is flat and tired and hollow. Nothing like how  _ roomy _ Helen’s seems, even as trepidation makes it shrink. You note the curve of his back, how straight he sits, head tilted up towards her.

“You  _ know _ that isn’t it. Don’t pretend you don’t know what it’s like.”

“For one to be alone, they must be an  _ individual,” _ he intones. “Wholly real and really whole. You aren’t a  _ person _ anymore, Helen.”

“Then why do I feel like one!”

Her cry splits the still air of the room, and Michael tenses, fingers gripping the sheets too hard. He whips around to check you haven’t been woken; you shut your eyes tight before his gaze falls on you properly. You should be asleep. You shouldn’t be witnessing this. It’s not your place; you’ve never been a hallway that’s a person and a concept and a fear. And yet here in this room are the only two people in the world who  _ have. _

“I knew she wasn’t ready,” Helen murmurs, still agitated. “She’s not—I’m not ready to let go. I told myself that I’d rather deal with her feelings than with  _ your _ feelings—that hers were normal kinds of fear. Easily digestible. But what if I was wrong? It was all an accident, and—I’m not supposed to work this way, Michael. This isn’t right.”

It occurs to you that Michael is shaking. It’s a while before he manages to say, in a voice that’s little more than a breath, “Of course it isn’t right.”

“And now  _ I _ have to deal with the consequences of that failure.”

“My failure.”

“No.  _ Our _ failure. All of us.”

Helen perches at the end of the bed. You can see her now—a silhouette against the still-open window. You note the fuzzy edges of her curling hair. She watches Michael for a long second; he doesn’t look back at her.

“Look at you,” she says. If her tone wasn’t so contemplative, you’d almost call her  _ amused. _ “Look at you. You’re not how I remember you at all.”

“Did you expect me to be anything like I was?”

“I thought you’d be wearing a shirt, at least.”

He laughs. A small, wet sound. “Blame that on my partner.”

Something in your chest lights up at the way he says it, but you barely have time to register it before Helen speaks.

“Do you remember it? That— _ tearing? _ The way it reaches down into your soul and rends it, turns it inside out, stretches it out into impossible shapes?”

He stiffens. “Yes.”

“It hurts.”

“Yes. Like nothing else.”

“When does it stop hurting?”

“It doesn’t. Not in the way you want it to.”

She slouches forward, staring off into the dark corners of the all-too-finite room. “I just want to be Helen.”

“You are.”

“I’m the Distortion.”

“Your  _ self _ is not so simple that both can’t be true.”

“I don’t think  _ anything _ is true anymore. I think I’ve gone mad.”

Michael laughs at that, properly. It’s a spiralling kind of laugh, one whose curves and edges bounce through the space and lose themselves somewhere near the ceiling. “I think you’ll find that from where you stand,  _ truth _ is relative and  _ madness _ is just a particularly colorful symptom of that relativity.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I just like to pretend that it’s something that can be explained.”

“Have you considered that there’s beauty in the unknowable?”

“I guess so. But I’m still—I can’t help but—there’s a part of me that can’t help but come at it like a human. Because I want to cling to how it felt to be—to be Helen. To have a purpose. To sell houses! But at the same time, that’s so despicable, isn’t it? Helen was so small. So… simple. Like the architecture she so loved.”

“I think,” begins Michael, and then he stops, wraps his arms around himself. He is so still for a moment that you think he’s forgotten how to breathe. And then he looks at Helen, and the ambient light catches his face, and the picture painted there is one of a deep, drowning sorrow.

“I think that you’re going to forget what it was like to be Helen. But you’ll still carry it on your back, of course. Like a shell that’s too small for you. It’s a mask. It’s another layer, another twist of your fractured reality. But it’s still  _ there. _ It still makes up some part of what it means to be  _ you, _ what it means to be the Distortion, even as your mind contorts and expands to fill spaces you never thought could exist. Because you are the right hand of It Is Not What It Is, and, like a hand, the distinction between  _ you _ and that entity that makes up so much of your consciousness—well, it’s all semantics, isn’t it? It’s—synecdochical, sometimes. I would say something about determinism here, but really, who knows if you have free will or not?”

“Is this supposed to be a reassurance?”

“I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be. Sometimes I just talk and I start to regurgitate philosophy. Sorry.”

That would make you chuckle if you weren’t still pretending to be asleep. You think you see Helen’s lips quirk up.

“Where do you think I am, then? In… in all of this. In this process of  _ becoming. _ In my own… mind, I guess.”

“I think you’re stuck in the spaces in between. And sometimes that isn’t a bad place to be.”

“Could I get out?”

“No. You never will.” His voice is stronger now; he knows what he’s talking about.

“Not even if I became like you? If something came in and I—lost myself again? Got torn apart? Back into a human?”

Michael is quiet for a long time. As you lay motionless, you can hear his breathing. In and out with his beating mind. His face is turned away from you. You almost want to reach out and lay a hand on the small of his back, assure him that he’s not alone. Remember? Remember how we promised we’d get through this hand in hand? That we’d navigate together the existential turmoil of being human?

“Do not envy me,” he says finally. “Besides. It’s hard to say, but—I don’t know that I’m quite a human.”

Something cold and hard sinks into your stomach.

“You look like one,” says Helen.

“So do you. I certainly  _ feel _ like one.” He scoots back into the middle of the bed, crossing his legs. “Hmm. How shall I explain. Would you mind entertaining a thought experiment with me?”

She grins. “Alright.”

“Can a human ever know what it is like to be, say, a bat?”

“Um… not without becoming a bat, probably not.”

“Okay. And if a human were to be turned into a bat somehow—how would they process that? Do they retain their human brain, their memories, their identity, their experiences? No, because then they wouldn’t be a true bat, would they? They would be a human in a bat’s body. Disregarding how ridiculous that phrasing is. But if they didn’t have their memories, their identity, all of that—if they adopted the true mindset of a bat. If they flew around, being a bat just like a bat would, and then changed back into a human. That’s still—memories. They don’t know what it’s like to be a bat.”

“Wouldn’t they? They were a bat. They’d remember what that was like.”

“But they’re processing it as a human. They  _ don’t know. _ Not unless they’re… in that instant. It’s… what it’s like for  _ them _ to be a bat, not what it’s like for a  _ bat _ to be a bat.”

Helen’s face is all scrunched up in a manner you expect yours would also be if you were at all trying to make sense of Michael’s ramblings. “I don’t follow. Are you saying you’re the human who turned into a human-like bat, and you don’t actually know what it’s like to be the Distortion, or… you don’t know what it’s like to be a human… or…?”

“I… um. Sorry. It’s three in the morning and I’m trying to recall a paper I read a while ago. I think I had a point.”

“You were telling me why you don’t consider yourself human.”

“Oh. Well, to be honest I think I could have done that without the extended, ah, without going off on the bat thing.” You hear a smile in his voice there. “I think that the experience of being a human does not encompass the experience of being a Distortion. I think that it altered me. Because now I look at the world through the eyes of someone who used to be the Distortion, and it’s—it’s not something I can shake.” He shivers. “Doors are just doors and my flesh is my flesh and lies are… lies are hard to bear. And spirals! I see spirals everywhere, and I always feel… a jolt to my stomach, like when you recognize something that reminds you of a huge, complex memory. Spirals in clothes and plants and hair and snail shells. It’s funny, having such a clear association. Oh, and then there are the nightmares, of course. I… couldn’t make sense of them enough to describe them, I don’t think.”

You didn’t realize Michael had nightmares. He’s been more eager to sleep than you have lately—dreams are a comfort, he told you. Maybe it’s another classification problem. Maybe something that scares you can also be something you chase after. Like vertigo.

Helen just watches him, her hands folded in her lap. Her presence, once again, feels so close to that of a human. So close yet so far. Her eyebrows are knit together in genuine concern.

“Are you sure that isn’t just… PTSD?”

Michael blinks. “It’s—no, it changed my entire—”

“Exactly.”

You can feel him about to push back, about to argue, dive into some more philosophy to justify his own depersonalization. But he just sits in silence. Lets the night’s stillness engulf him once again.

“It isn’t that—that I don’t realize I’m traumatized,” he says finally, with a little snort. “But when it comes to the entity that presides over the fear of madness, it can be hard to tell where… where the mental illness ends and the supernatural influence begins.”

“Do you  _ want _ to be a human?”

That’s the question, isn’t it. You wonder if Helen knows she’s taking Michael down a well-trodden path. But he can get something out of it from her that he could never get from you.

“Yes,” replies Michael—with significant hesitation, but more confidence than you expected. “Yes, because—for a lot of reasons. Because I thought I was never going to be Michael Shelley again, but scraps of his life keep returning to me in perfect detail, in full color. Because I don’t want to lose myself a third time, be shattered into so many more tiny pieces. Because I want to stay here with Mike and build a  _ real _ life for myself and pretend I don’t still feel incomplete. But it isn’t black and white, like one existence is all good and one is all bad. There were so many wonderful things about being the Distortion that I am never going to experience again.”

She inches closer to him, leaning forward. “Tell me about them.”

“Well, of course, there’s the power. To be so much  _ more _ than a human in every way. Space flows through you like blood; you are the ultimate arbiter of truth and perception and you can twist both to your bidding. I don’t think I need to elaborate there.”

She sucks in a breath. “I haven’t dared to… to use that power against anyone. But I can feel it.”

“Not to mention, simply being able to open a door to anywhere in the world, instantaneously. It’s incredible.”

“Yes. That I  _ do _ like.”

“And once all the fear recedes—and trust me, it will—you just feel on top of the world. It’s as if nothing can touch you.”

“So I—I’ll stop feeling like this.”

“I think you can accept it.”

“You don’t think Helen was the wrong choice.”

He laughs. “At least Helen was a  _ choice. _ If you want to interpret your becoming as an act of agency on the part of the Spiral. Michael Shelley was force-fed to the Distortion, and look at how he turned out.”

“I see exactly how he turned out,” she says, with a conspicuous glance. “Traumatized.”

The smile slips off his face. “I mean that—that—you know what I mean. In many ways, you have it better than I did. And you remember what it was like to be me, do you not? More or less?”

Helen nods. “Yes, I’m aware. I have less… baggage now, I think is how I put it.”

“Right.”

“But I still don’t…” She breaks eye contact, twisting her fingers together. You wonder if they’re sharp at all. If she could cut herself on them, further alienating herself from her body. “I don’t want to be a monster.”

“What is a monster, Helen?”

“Something inhuman. Something that—that kills people,  _ eats _ people.”

“Yes. And you will do that. For… survival. And maybe you will even enjoy it. But really, monsters are all culture. A monster is something that arises out of a collective fear. And isn’t that precisely the definition of the dread powers? You are made of fear. You  _ know _ this. And  _ monster _ has so many connotations, but just begin with thinking about  _ fear.” _

“I—” Her voice dies in her throat. When it returns, it’s quavering, pitched up a little. “I don’t think I want to be feared. I want to have friends. I’m—I’m a  _ real estate agent, _ for heaven’s sake. That’s not someone you fear!”

“No,” says Michael steadily, “you aren’t.”

“I’m not,” Helen echoes, remembering herself.

It’s interesting—Helen doesn’t talk in riddles, not at all, but she does seem to be leading the conversation in a spiralling pattern, bringing old topics back around, building on them. Her emotions shift so rapidly. Just like Michael.

“You  _ are _ the real estate now,” he continues, and giggles. “And it’s okay! You’re in the in-between. A monster defies categorization. That’s the wonderful thing about being a monster. That’s what’s so maddeningly beautiful about the Distortion. You are liminal and limitless.”

Helen takes a deep, shuddering breath, and scoots over to sit right next to Michael, careful to avoid where your legs still lie under the covers. Her hand hovers above his shoulder, but she snatches it away quickly, perhaps worrying she’d cut him if she set it down without thinking.

“And what about friends?”

“Oh, you can still have friends. For example—Mike! You remember when I met Mike, don’t you?”

She laughs feebly. “He hated you.”

“He certainly did! But that is beside the point. I had plenty of friends as the Distortion. Sasha! You remember Sasha.”

“I…” Her eyebrows knit together. “I don’t think I…”

Michael freezes in what looks like mortification. “Never mind,” he says immediately. “I had other friends.”

“...Did you?”

“Yes! I was excellent friends with the Worker of Clay.”

“Yes, I was, but that was before I was you. He was destroyed when you became me.”

“...Ah.” He swallows. “That is true. I… hmm. Perhaps I should amend my statement. I have had plenty of conversations with people who I didn’t intend on killing.”

“Name one.”

“Jane Prentiss.”

“You hated Jane Prentiss.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t going to  _ kill _ her. I simply wanted to see if she was interested in—”

“Try again.”

Michael wracks his brains for an alarmingly long time. Even as their conversation takes on a lighter tone (which you have to say you’re glad about), they can’t escape the melancholy threads weaving it together. “I don’t think the Nowhere Man counts as a  _ person,” _ he says slowly. “Or anything, really. And I had many friendly chats with the Archivist before I decided to kill him.”

“I still don’t understand why you tried to do that! He’s a nice man.”

“The reasons are rather complicated and also rather silly.”

“No, I know your  _ reasons. _ I just—well, I think  _ I _ will try to be proper friends with him, since you obviously failed at that.”

“Go right ahead!”

“And…” Helen pauses, her small smile giving way to a more pensive expression. “I hope that we can be friends as well.”

“Oh? After you threw me out of my own house?”

“Stop it, Michael, I’m being serious. I truly appreciate all of your guidance. Thank you.”

Ever so gently, she slips her hand into his. His fingers close around it, feeling its peculiar weight in his palm, then squeezes it back. A sigh rattles his body as she lets go, and he squares his shoulders, shifting his position on the bed. He tucks a stray strand of hair behind his ear and bites his lip.

“This was… a lot of emotions. But I’m glad it helped. And—of course I’ll be your friend, Helen. You’re already the closest thing to family I have.”

The two of them sit in silence for a long while. The air is cooler now, but if Michael’s affected by the chill, he doesn’t show it. You can make out Helen’s door in the corner of the room—he watches it, but with what emotion you can’t be sure.

Two Distortions meeting in your bedroom. Two consequences of an Archivist’s determination to bind a barely-real entity to a human shell. Two people who will never be the same again.

By the time Helen stands up, you feel like you’re halfway to falling asleep again.

“Family, huh?” she says. “Does that make Mike my… brother in law?”

He giggles. “I think we’d have to be married for that.”

“Hmm. You should get on that.”

“Absolutely not. Marriage is a heteronormative farce that I will take no part in. Besides, we haven’t known each other for nearly enough time.”

“Fair enough.” Helen walks to her door and puts one hand on the knob. “I’ll be seeing you, then?”

“Be sure to visit at an earlier hour next time.”

She grins. “I’ll try.”

And then she is gone, and it is as if her door was never there in the first place.

Michael takes a couple more seconds to stare at the spot where she stood, then turns around and leans back onto the pillow, pulling the covers up to his neck. There’s the sound of shuffling. Warm breath on your forehead. Two cold arms fold around you.

“Hey,” murmurs Michael.

You’re not sure how much he knows you heard, but you crack open your eyes again and give him a smile. “Horrible time for a guest, huh?”

“It was Helen.”

“I know.”

If he cares that you were listening in, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he squeezes you tight to his chest and presses his face into the top of your head. His trembling hands massage your shoulders and work their way through your hair. He holds you so close, like you’re an anchor to the world, like he’s liable to be torn away again at any moment.

“I think it’s going to be okay, Mike,” he breathes. “I think we’re going to be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** i've been referencing nagel throughout the fic(s) tbh because it's a pretty important piece as far as philosophy of consciousness goes, but it deserves a special shoutout here. i'm also going to use this opportunity to say that referencing legit academic theory in fanfiction is the best way i've ever used my education. who said you don't use what you learn in school?
> 
> anyway all that is to say that michael's line about "it's 3 am and i'm trying to recall a paper" was entirely 100% my mindset while i was writing that section. yes it was 3 am in real life too.
> 
> also, some quick meta stuff! -
> 
> this fic is intentionally a lot more meandering/loosely plotted than many of my other stories. what that means is that i have at most a vague idea of the ending + notes for a couple scenes. that being said, if i had to guess i’d say that we’re definitely more than halfway through! thank you all for continuing to stick with me <3


	13. On Banter and Practicalities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I’m going to hell for my orange juice crimes,” he says, forlorn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> four short scenes!

Your head hurts terribly when you awake, which is, perhaps, to be expected, what with the heavy, dizzying events of the night. You waver on the edge of sleep for an hour or so, during which time Michael forces himself out of bed and slips on his shirt, which lays dutifully on the ground beside your dresser. By the time your pounding ache has been reduced to a dull throb, a sizzling sound has started up in the kitchen. Your curiosity drags you all the way out of the room, rubbing your eyes as the daylight hits them.

“Breakfast!” calls Michael.

“It’s noon.”

“I said, _breakfast._ Do you like coriander? I know some people think it tastes like soap, but…”

You enter the kitchen, one eyebrow lifting as Michael removes from his pan what you _think_ is an omelette. He cuts it in half and divides it between two plates, placing them in front of your regular spots at the table.

“What’s in it?” You take your seat next to Michael, staring at the burnt, bubbling mass of yellow and brown and green on your plate. “Coriander, I assume?”

“Yes! And bacon, cheese, and mushrooms. It’s my first time making an omelette.”

“Nice,” you murmur, because he deserves it for the effort.

It’s not as bad as you feared, actually. A little weird—and the coriander leaves a strange tang in your mouth—but edible. You finish the whole thing, then smile and give Michael a thumbs up. He beams.

“Thanks for making this,” you say. “We should probably be making an effort to cook more often? It’s not like we can’t afford the amounts of takeout we’ve been getting, but, ah… it’s a good habit to get into.”

He nods. “I’m excited to hone my skills.”

“We can do it together.”

“Excellent!”

He scarfs down the rest of his omelette slice, then stands and pours himself a tall glass of orange juice, which he downs in one go. Or, rather, attempts to. About halfway through, he chokes, spilling the rest of it down his shirt and across the floor.

“Shit!” he cries, and fumbles around for the sponge as you jump up to grab the paper towels. You tear off a long section and mop up some of the juice on the floor before it can trickle too close toward the edge of the tiles, pooling around the table leg.

“Sorry,” says Michael through a fit of giggles. His sponge is doing absolutely nothing against the orange juice flood, but he’s trying anyway. You toss him the paper towel roll, which he promptly presses into the swath where the juice is thickest. It soaks up quickly, turning half of the white cylinder an orange-yellow. He drops the roll and curses again as you grip the countertop, your peals of laughter threatening to send you hurtling into the tide of juice.

Michael kneels in front of the puddle, watching with wide, hopeless eyes as the yellow stain consumes the entirety of the paper towel roll. “That was very stupid.”

“I love you so much,” is the only way you can think to respond.

“I think I’m going to hell for my orange juice crimes,” he says, forlorn.

“The only place you’re going for your orange juice crimes is the store to get me some more paper towels. Oh, and into my tender embrace. Come here.”

He steps over the now significantly smaller juice pool and wraps his arms around you. His shirt is still way too sticky, but you bear it, for now. You can both have a nice long shower later.

* * *

“How much did you actually hear of my conversation with Helen?” asks Michael, later, when you’re both drying off from the shower. The water combined with the heat of the day outside has turned the entire bathroom into a sauna, humid and steaming. You almost don’t want to put your clothes back on.

You end up slipping into a pair of shorts and a light shirt, but don’t bother doing up the buttons. “Oh. I have no idea. Most of it?”

“Huh,” he says. He pulls on his underwear and grabs a towel to twist up his hair.

“I’m sorry if it was meant to be private.”

“No, it’s alright. Thank you for not interrupting, though. It was… important to me. To have a moment with her.”

You nod. “For what it’s worth, I don’t even remember most of it. It was awfully late.”

He chuckles, straightening his towel turban in the mirror. “What _do_ you remember?”

“An awful lot of existential shit.”

“It’s my brand!”

“You said that you wanted to be a human, but it was… difficult to think of yourself that way? I don’t know. You talked about your friends. Helen made a joke about us getting married?”

“Ah, right.” Michael giggles. “Do you want to get married, Mike?”

“W—what? No??”

“Good. But I can’t stop thinking about how hilarious it would be. Don’t you think?”

“Would it be?”

“Yes! I could take your last name, and we could both be Michael Crew.”

“Oh _no,”_ you groan, over-exaggerating the emotion. But Michael’s already started to go down this hypothetical rabbit hole.

“Obviously we would invite Helen. I think that Simon Fairchild should officiate it. I’m sure he’s officiated many weddings.”

You think about the one wedding between Peter Lukas and Elias Bouchard that you were forced to attend, and shudder. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“I have absolutely no idea what we would wear. I think that we should either lean wholeheartedly into stereotypical wedding dress—so much so that it feels like a parody and showcases how performative the whole thing is— _or,_ wear the most egregious and informal outfits we can find.”

“You’ve certainly put a lot of thought into this.”

“It’s an entertaining concept!”

You grin and poke him in the ribs. “Sure you’re not just fantasizing about _actually_ marrying me?”

“Oh, no, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Believe me, I don’t actually think it would be a good or realistic idea, but there is something oddly… thrilling? about such a mundane sort of ceremony, if you know what I mean.”

“It’s pretty funny,” you admit. You can’t say the prospect excites you as much as it does Michael; you’ve never liked the idea of being so legally bound to anyone, even someone you loved. But he’s just talking about the ritual of it. Maybe that would be more fun.

Michael straightens up suddenly. He cocks his head, looking a little nonplussed. “Hmm. Do you suppose I would have to legally exist to get married?”

“Um? Probably? Do you not legally exist anymore?”

“I have no clue. I assume Gertrude would have declared me dead.” His hand rests at the edge of the sink; he stares unseeingly into the mirror. You notice that a couple sprigs of hair poke from his turban. “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that before. I wonder what she did with my passport, or my birth certificate, or… such things. I would say that I’m completely unreal in the eyes of the law.” He cackles softly. “Perfect. That’s one way to maintain that distance from reality.”

“You’ll probably want to do something about that at some point? That is, if you’re even interested in doing things legally.”

“Mmm. Maybe.” He nudges you. “Quick, look up what other things you need to get legally married. I’m curious now.”

You laugh. “Alright, if you say so.”

The two of you exit the humid bathroom, which is something of a relief. You retrieve your phone from the sofa and type in a Google search.

“Passport,” you read. “Right. Proof of your home address. You said you don’t own your old flat anymore, do you?”

“No.”

“And I guess _we’re_ not, er, legal roommates. Let’s see. Wedding venue details. That’s interesting. And I think that’s it?” You skim the rest of the page. “You don’t have a driver’s license, do you?”

“Of course not. I lived in London.”

“Right. And then…” You click onto another page and scroll through. “I’m not completely sure, but it looks like you have to list occupations on a marriage license? What the hell would we put? Servant—former servant—of the eldritch power known as the Vast? Archival assistant? I don’t suppose you’re still employed at the Magnus Institute.”

“Oh, a fascinating question. I may very well be.”

You close your browser and toss the phone back onto the sofa. “Guess we have a couple hurdles to go through before we could get married. Just as well.”

Michael fakes a pout. “So very sad. Helen will be disappointed.”

“I _am_ sorry to disappoint Helen.”

“And Simon?”

“And Simon. Speaking of which, you’ve never met, have you?”

“No! If he ever stops by again, please introduce me.”

You consider what you know about Simon’s thoughts on the Distortion. That’s gonna be a hell of a thing to explain. But you just grin and say “Definitely,” because if you can meet one of Michael’s most important friends, he can sure as hell meet yours.

* * *

“Mike,” says Michael suddenly, some time later, “I need your opinion on something very important.”

You look up from your book. Michael is sitting on the floor near where you’ve situated yourself on the living room couch. He’s got a pencil in hand, staring thoughtfully down at something he’s scribbled in a notebook. It looks like a list.

“Mmm?”

“I’m trying to think of a horror movie that fits each fear entity. What is your opinion on the Vast?”

You blink. “I, uh, haven’t seen many horror movies? What comes to mind is 2001: A Space Odyssey _—_ does that work?”

“Sure,” Michael replies, and notes it down. “Hmm. It is difficult to pick one for the Spiral. It feels like there aren’t many movies I’ve seen that have… captured the true feeling of it.”

“What about, um…” You wrack your brains. Damn, you are really not a movie person. “The Matrix.”

He snorts. “The Matrix isn’t a horror movie.”

“It absolutely is.”

“It is not,” he insists. “And it also isn’t a Spiral movie. It’s a Web movie.”

“Isn’t it all about the fear of your world not being real?”

“Yes, but it is even more so about the fear of being controlled. Well. ‘Fear’ is, perhaps, too strong a term. It isn’t a scary movie, Mike.”

“In what world is The Matrix not fucking terrifying?”

“I thought it was kind of funny.”

“Oh, I see. You’re one of _those_ people.”

“What? No, I just… I suppose I watched it in a time before my fear of the Spiral was fully realized.”

“Well, unfortunately for me, I watched it as a kid who hallucinated storms all the time and was rather afraid of the world being unreal.”

He snaps his fingers. “And there is your problem! Why were you watching The Matrix as a kid!”

You feel yourself redden. “It came out when I was… ten or so, I think, and I just… really really liked watching movies on the big screen?”

“Ten?? _Mike!”_

“Look, I was also not very good at self-regulation at times.”

“Why did your parents let you watch an adult movie!”

“They didn’t especially care what I did a lot of the time. What, I assume you were more sensible and watched it when it was out of theaters?”

Michael’s indignant face turns contemplative. He sets his notebook down and stares up at the ceiling. “Hmm. I have no idea. My memory is, ah, spotty. When did it come out?”

“Um… ’99, I think.”

“1999… hmm. I don’t know what I was doing in 1999. I think I was in secondary school.”

“Wait, Michael, how old are you?”

His eyes zero back on your face. “Oh! I have no idea.”

“When were you born?”

“’85.” He giggles. “I remember that date, at least.”

“Good lord, you’re older than me.”

His eyebrows shoot up, a smirk spreading across his face. “Excellent. I’m very happy I’ve established dominance in more than one area.”

“Was that a jab at my height?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you.”

“I think I’ve been rather good about not teasing you for being short.”

“You have,” you admit.

“Well, anyway. I want to know how much older than you I am.”

“Four years. I’m ’89. And if I’m 28, that makes you… 32?”

“Wow!” Michael looks a little more surprised about this than he should be, but you suppose that ages are something that tend to slip from your mind when you’re a Distortion. Time is difficult, after all. “That’s quite old.”

“It really isn’t.”

“It feels old when the last time I thought about my age I was 24. I _think._ December 2009? Right?” He massages his temples. “It is so strange to consider that the Great Twisting had a _date_ in linear time. Do you think my body is still 24?”

“You’d know better than I would. Do you think you’ve aged?”

“Well… yes? But it’s strange. I don’t know how much of the difference in my body is natural processes, and how much is, ah, Spiral-related. I suppose it must be some of both.”

“So,” you say slowly, “if you were 24 when you became the Distortion. When did you join the Magnus Institute? Because that seems awfully young.”

“2004! I was 19. I was an intern.” He smiles, and his face manages to perfectly capture the look of a plucky young intern. “I didn’t know what I was getting into. In fact, I never really learned, did I? Not until much later.”

“The Magnus Institute has interns??”

“Not anymore. But they did. I was the last one, I think. Don’t worry; I became an assistant eventually.”

“Don’t you need a library science degree to work in the Archives?”

“No?”

“I just—” You exhale. “Whenever you tell me about the Magnus Archives, it seems like you were… hilariously underqualified? Sorry, I don’t mean that in a—”

“No, no. I was perfectly qualified. However, the qualification depended more on my curiosity and my trauma than anything I was studying at university.”

His smile has turned forced, almost malicious. Your stomach twists.

“That’s—yeah. That figures. God, I hope they paid you.”

“They did. They weren’t _that_ cruel.”

“Good,” you mutter.

“Speaking of university,” Michael says, his tone flipping back to the conversational. “Did you ever finish your degree?”

Your surprised mind races to catch up with him, and it takes you embarrassingly long to respond with, “What?”

“You were a college student when I met you. Did you finish your degree?”

“Why is this important to you?”

“I’m curious. I don’t think you ever told me what you studied.”

“Medieval and Early Modern History, because I was a nerd. Before you ask, I was not a very good student, and yes I did drop out halfway through my final year, because everyone thought I was dead. Which is, I think, effectively equivalent to dropping out?”

Michael laughs. “Yes, more or less.”

“I don’t regret it,” you say, perhaps a bit too defensive.

“I never suggested you should. But now I’m even more curious. I never pegged you as a history person.”

“In all honesty, that particular interest was sparked by my book hunt. Which perhaps made me skip school a little too much.”

You don’t really have it in you to tell Michael, academic extraordinaire, that you really gave very few shits about education by the time you finished secondary school. It was something to do that wasn’t obsess over lightning and fractals. It was something to spend your dead parents’ money on. Other than books, of course. So, so many books.

You also don’t tell him that you murdered two of your classmates. Partially because it’s not important, partially because you think you’d rather forget that. It’s funny, honestly. You’ve mellowed out so much in ten years. Or was that in two months? Did the Buried change you that much? Made you forget the frenzy and blood-streaked turmoil of your college experience?

“I think I was a bit fucked up as a college student,” is what you do tell Michael, and laugh as you say it. Because, really, you’ve been a bit fucked up since you were struck by lightning at the age of 8. But there’s something special about ripping out the bones of a school bully with a piece of glorified Chaucer fanfiction.

“That’s okay,” he replies with an almost cheery air. “I knew you as a college student, remember? And _I_ liked you, so you can’t have been that bad.”

You smile. “True, I guess. Thanks for that.”

* * *

Simon Fairchild has to pester you over email for about three whole days before you finally get off your ass and download Steam. Gazing at the “Top Sellers” section of the front page just makes you feel more out of the loop than you’ve ever been, and finding Simon’s profile even more so. You can’t believe your 500 year old grandpa is more in touch with youth culture than you. Where the hell did he get the time to rack up almost a thousand hours on Skyrim?

“I can’t do this, Michael,” you call towards the kitchen. “Simon is trying to turn me into a gamer. I can’t. I refuse.”

He pokes his head into the living room. “Oh. Well, if you aren’t going to buy any games, can I?”

“You want me to buy you a video game?”

“Maybe?”

“What game?”

He shrugs.

“If you’d like to satisfy Simon’s pleas to play Team Fortress 2 with him or whatever the fuck, please, be my guest.”

“I think I just miss using a computer.”

“Oh.”

For some reason, it hadn’t really occurred to you that Michael doesn’t have any electronics. Maybe it’s just because he finds ways to occupy himself that don’t involve scrolling through the internet, which is an unfortunate habit you’ve picked up now that you’re spending a lot more time at home. You suddenly feel bad for not offering to share your laptop. But then again, it’s not like he had any real possessions as the Distortion. It’s not a huge change.

“We can definitely get you your own computer,” you continue. Then laugh. “Hell, I bet Simon would chip in extra if you wanted to get a gaming PC.”

He chuckles and waves his hands. “No, no, I don’t need that. I just want—” He stops all of a sudden, and his eyebrows rise in realization. “Mike. Mike, I know what game I’d like to play.”

“What?”

“Portal 2.”

“Holy shit. Does that imply the existence of a Portal 1?”

Michael’s giggles are high and loud. “Haven’t you heard of Portal? I loved it when it came out. Perhaps I should have taken that as foreshadowing, but…”

“And now you want to play the sequel. You aren’t sick of portals?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“I don’t suppose it’s about doors.”

“No, more sci-fi portals. It’s a puzzle game. There’s a funny robot lady.”

“Okay,” you say. “Right. Well, I’ll lend you my laptop if you don’t want to get your own.”

Michael comes out of the kitchen and plops down beside you on the couch. He’s wearing an outlandish blue-and-pink checkered shirt today whose brightness hurts your eyes a little. He watches you scroll through Steam for a while in silence.

“I miss my old computer,” he says eventually.

“The one Gertrude took?”

“Yes. It was nice. It didn’t crash that often. I had a fantastic desktop background. It was this… very cool fantasy landscape artwork. I don’t know if I could find it again.”

Your own desktop is a rather aesthetic photo of the sky, because you are nothing if not committed to your brand. It’s funny that that’s the first thing Michael remembers about his computer.

“Did you have anything on there you didn’t back up?”

“I doubt any of it was backed up. I have never exactly been a tech wiz.”

“So you must’ve lost a lot.”

He nods. “Photos. Old documents. Like… to-do lists, maybe. Or pieces of poetry I never posted anywhere?”

“Poetry? Didn’t realize you were a poet!”

Michael reddens. “Ah, not really. I… tried, sometimes. A very long time ago. Never mind.”

“That’s kinda cute.”

“It wasn’t, trust me. It was more along the lines of _fake deep.”_

You plant a soft kiss on his cheek. “Adorable.”

“Mike!” he squeals, pulling his knees to his chest and snuggling up closer to you. “You’re embarrassing me.”

You sling your left arm around his shoulder and pull his head down so it rests against yours. The Steam page stays open on your laptop screen, all but forgotten.

A sudden thought enters your brain unprompted. You sit up, heart rate increasing as a plan unfolds itself like a flower opening its petals.

“Mmm?” Michael lifts his head, surprised.

“Michael,” you say slowly, “it isn’t as if your computer is lost forever, is it?”

You can hear the gears of his mind churning. “Oh. It’s—you think we could retrieve it from Artifact Storage?”

“Worth a shot, don’t you think?”

His brows furrow. “I’m not sure that I want to reveal myself to the Magnus Institute.”

“Depending on how sneaky we are, I don’t know if we’d have to.”

“You think we’d be able to break into and steal from the Institute? The one place in the world with eyes literally everywhere?”

It’s a solid point. Your adrenaline-fueled brainstorm hadn’t got you that far. “Do you think they’d care about a single missing laptop? They know I’m alive; I don’t doubt they know about you as well.”

Michael laughs, high-pitched and nervous. “I can’t believe I’m the one trying to talk _you_ out of a crazy plot.”

“It isn’t _that_ crazy. And hey, I can be spontaneous too. We could make it a road trip. Train trip. Whatever.”

“Maybe,” he replies, unconvinced.

“I doubt we’d even need to break in. There are—lots of options.” Your head is spinning; it’s been so long since you had a plan, a project, a problem that needed to be solved. “We could, um, pretend to be someone else? Coming to give a statement?”

“I’m not going to lie to them.”

“Right, of course you aren’t. Sorry. All I’m saying is that it’s feasible.”

Michael slips his hand into yours. His face is etched with worry, but he manages a small smile as he meets your eyes. “Thank you for all your concern, Mike. I simply am not sure that it’s worth it. Neither of us have a good history with the Magnus Institute. Not to mention, I know better than anyone how difficult it is to gain entry into Artifact Storage. Do you know how many servants of the Fears would love to get their hands on the powerful objects contained there?”

“Helen could help,” you argue, new ideas blossoming faster than you would have thought possible. “It’s—it’s not a big heist or anything. I just… I want to _do_ something, Michael. We’ve been sitting on our asses for weeks, and I’m ready to move. And if that _something_ is beneficial to you in some way—”

“It’s still risky.”

“What’s the danger?”

“We could be found out.”

“By the world’s most passive entity. The one that’s likely already _found out.”_

“What happened to being _off the grid?_ I thought that this was a concern of yours as well.”

You bite your lip. “Yes, and then I discovered that Elias Bouchard knows I’m alive, and that he doesn’t particularly give a damn. If we think this through well, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Tell the truth, make it brief, convince them to give us back your things. Maybe they have your passport and such in there. Tell me that isn’t worth trying to find.”

“I just don’t like the idea of sidling up to the Institute and telling them that I’m Michael Shelley” —he spits out the name with more vitriol than you would have expected— “and I’d like to retrieve some items that were left for me seven years ago after I became a fractal corridor monster.”

“So it’s a matter of what, pride?”

Michael removes his hands from yours and wrings them out, agitated. “No! I don’t know. I simply do not want them to know that about me. They don’t deserve that information. I don’t care if they _already know._ It’s—”

“It’s that admitting it makes it more real?”

He squints. “Perhaps?”

“Sorry. I’m just trying to understand.”

“I know. It’s okay.” He sighs, leaning back further into the cushions of the sofa. “I wonder, how much do I truly need such reminders of something I used to be? For what, nostalgia?” He lets out a small, hollow laugh. “For a place in a legal system that I have not spared a single thought since I stopped being real in their eyes?”

“It’s not something you _need._ But maybe it could help.”

“With what?”

“With all your questioning.”

His face scrunches up, lips pressing together to form a thin line. “Maybe I am scared of what I’ll find if I dive too deeply into the past.”

You don’t answer that.

The silence thrums around you, awkward and then melancholy and then patient, accepting. You place your hand on Michael’s knee and move your thumb back and forth, a tiny reminder of your presence. That you’re here for him.

“I’ll think about it,” says Michael finally. “You do make some compelling points.”

You nod. “No rush.”

“Besides.” He cracks a smile. “I _would_ be very excited to go on a road trip.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i FINALLY got off my ass and made a timeline of mike & michael's lives in this fic's canon. the funny thing is that, since Too Like the Lightning's first chapter was an interaction between michael distortion and pre-vast mike (something impossible given the actual canon timeline), i had to completely uproot mike's timeline. i used one of the possible interpretations of michael's canon timeline (one of... many. thanks jonny) and built mike's non-canon one around that. the result is that they're both younger than they probably are in canon which is like whatever, cool. and now maybe i can reference actual years more in this fic!


	14. On Games and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SIMON  
> Michael, if you’re there -- we should absolutely play some co-op video games together sometime. I think it would be a blast!  
> I will make sure to choose a game that has no ‘fall damage’ mechanics ;-)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gamer grandpa rights
> 
> a short, fun chapter before we hit the next big plotty thing!
> 
> also, i've tentatively added a final chapter count :0 it may very well be longer than that, but i think i have a pretty good idea of how the end of this fic is going to play out...

_ A Steam chat between users Defenestration_Master_1542 (Simon Fairchild) and lichtenburgerz (Mike and Michael’s joint account). _

SIMON   
I see you’ve finally made a Steam account, Mike! Thank you for ‘friending’ me…I am curious to see what games you’ll be playing ;-)

MICHAEL   
:)

SIMON   
I must say, your username made me chortle.

MICHAEL   
hehehe yes i bullied mike into it   
(he thinks its stupid)

SIMON   
!   
You aren’t Mike?!   
Then that must mean I am talking to……

MICHAEL   
yes im michael! we are sharing an account   
pleasure to meet you   
ive heard a lot about you!

SIMON   
A pleasure to meet you as well!   
Oho, all good things, I hope?

MICHAEL   
hmm… half and half :)   
mike just gave me the biggest glare from across the room

SIMON   
Oh dear! I take it he hasn’t responded well to my, ah, prodding.

MICHAEL   
lol yea he was complaining that you were pressuring him into being a gamer

SIMON   
You’ll have to help me prod him.

MICHAEL   
absolutely   
im downloading portal 2 AS WE SPEAK!!   
maybe thisll convince him

SIMON   
Ah, a Portal fan! I could never play those -- they make me so nauseous.

MICHAEL   
i wouldve thought youd be used to nausea!   
ie. vertigo

SIMON   
No, vertigo is more of Mike’s theme.   
Besides, it’s an entirely different feeling than that which one gets from watching computer people move around in odd ways.

MICHAEL   
thats true   
video games have never made me nauseous i dont think   
maybe im just rather attuned to the way that 3d objects move in space!

SIMON   
Hmm, perhaps!   
I would also call myself particularly ‘attuned to 3D space,’ haha, but it’s quite a bit more difficult when that space isn’t REAL space…but also, who cares!   
You’re making me want to try Portal again. I did like…what was her name ?? Glados?

MICHAEL   
i love her   
you should! its pretty easy but its quite fun   
hmm, since you are apparently a gamer extraordinaire…!   
do you have any recommendations?

SIMON   
I HIGHLY recommend Subnautica.

MICHAEL   
oh whats that?

SIMON   
It’s a beautiful game about exploring the ocean!   
It’s perfect if you need something to relax.

MICHAEL   
excellent!   
ill look it up   
oh   
  
SIMON   
;-)

MICHAEL   
“survival horror”

SIMON   
;-D

MICHAEL   
hehehe nice try but youre not tricking me into feeding your patron!

SIMON   
What a pity.   
But, I’m sure Mike has already given you the, shall we say, ‘recruitment spiel’ more times than I ever could!   
More prodding I suppose :-P

MICHAEL   
?

SIMON   
You aren’t properly aligned with any of the Powers, are you?   
At least that is what Mike seemed to imply.

MICHAEL   
huh   
did he?

SIMON   
It’s what I got from it!   
Free for the taking ;-)

MICHAEL   
i appreciate your efforts but i cant say i am looking to join myself to the vast anytime soon

SIMON   
Fair enough. Some people simply aren’t cut out for our lifestyle!

MICHAEL   
mmm

SIMON   
So, tell me about yourself, Michael! I’m sorry to have our first meeting over the ‘interwebs,’ but I must say I’m curious about you!

MICHAEL   
o wow!   
im flattered!   
ummm   
like what do you want to know?

SIMON   
Anything!   
How did you meet Mike?

MICHAEL   
hmmmmmm…!   
it was years ago so let me think   
we ran into each other a lot   
mostly by accident   
at first he thought i was someone else   
i dont remember very clearly; we didnt talk much except to get on each others nerves ahaha   
i just know that eventually i started running into him on purpose more and more   
even though i knew he hated me

SIMON   
Aha, was this in his teenage angst years?

MICHAEL   
hehehe well he certainly wasnt a teenager but i would say angst is the right word!

SIMON   
Young Adult angst.   
It has been so long since I was a teenager -- I can barely even remember it! I’m sure I, ah, had the hots for a girl or a boy or two, but that seems like such a distant past. Although, in the lifetime of the universe, it isn’t even a blink of an eye! I’m not sure if I ever ‘crushed on’ anyone who hated me, though…that sounds like quite the wild ride. How fun! Did he dislike you for any particular reason?

MICHAEL   
yes   
i liked to annoy him   
then one day i annoyed him until he kissed me so   
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

SIMON   
Oh my, how did that happen??

MICHAEL   
well i was flirting too :3   
it feels like so long ago yeah   
um   
2011?

SIMON   
Really!!   
I cannot believe that Mike has had a boyfriend for six years and never told me.   
I always thought that he wasn’t all that interested in long term relationships!

MICHAEL   
oh nono we only really got together recently   
met up again after years of not seeing each other!   
i dug him out of the buried   
sort of

SIMON   
Then I suppose I have much to thank you for!!

MICHAEL   
oh the pleasure was all mine :)

SIMON   
The Buried is a horrid thing to come into contact with. Funny, though, isn’t it -- how close the Vast and the Buried can be sometimes? Back in the day, I was very interested in the deep ocean…a realm that one could say ‘belongs’ to both entities! Just goes to show how silly the boundaries between them are. All due respect to Smirke -- who I met actually! A rather boring man, to tell you the truth……too close to the Eye for me, though he would always vehemently deny he was aligned with any of them! That’s a hard position to be in. Trying to ascribe meaning and categorization to something so vast and meaningless. Laughable yet endearing is what I say!

MICHAEL   
yea true!   
wow i am so very excited about portal 2   
i have not played a video game since 2009!

SIMON   
Good heavens, that’s certainly something to remedy as fast as possible!   
I remember being so amazed when the first video games started to come out. Take, for example, Pong…in the scheme of things, that wasn’t so long ago, was it!   
I don’t tend to stay in one place for long so I haven’t the time to ‘game’ as much as I would like to…but……it is rather fun :-)   
So meaningless yet so engaging! Much like life itself.

MICHAEL   
yes!   
i have never been a big gamer but theyre good at keeping your attention   
i had a lot of attention issues when i was in school; it was so much easier to focus on mario 64 or what have you   
always off in my own world…   
hehe ironic

SIMON   
Oh, I loved Mario 64! Have you seen the videos online where people try to go as fast as possible and make the game break?? They are hilarious!

MICHAEL   
yessss

SIMON   
Michael, I am just overjoyed to have another acquaintance who understands video gaming. My main ‘pal,’ Peter Lukas, simply does not understand it at all!! Between you and me, I think he could crash a computer just by looking at it…

MICHAEL   
youre friends with peter lukas?

SIMON   
Ha! Oh, he would hate to be known as my ‘friend,’ don’t you think?   
Have you met?

MICHAEL   
yes

SIMON   
Well, now I am positively intrigued! Peter doesn’t tend to, ah, ‘meet’ people, does he.

MICHAEL   
it wasnt   
on purpose   
we didnt even talk   
it was just   
hm   
its complicated

SIMON   
Ah. I completely understand.   
Though -- I can’t say you seem like much of a fit for the Lonely!

MICHAEL   
i think we are talking about two entirely different things

SIMON   
Perhaps so.   
Do you remember what we were talking about?   
Portal 2 ?!

MICHAEL   
yes

SIMON   
It is certainly a good pick for your first video game in eight years!   
Oh! You know what would love Portal 2? The Distortion! Think about that -- doors that can lead anywhere. It’s perfect!

MICHAEL   
oh   
yea   
it is!

SIMON   
Have you ever met the Distortion? Dreadful thing, makes your head spin in all the wrong sorts of ways! Now, see, I think I would love the idea of a vast, infinite set of hallways if only it weren’t so closed-off. Would it kill it to add in a few windows?

MICHAEL   
hmmmmm yes thats an excellent point   
there are windows if you go far enough   
but they just show you places that dont exist :)

SIMON   
Of course they do. Too cruel to give an old man a glimpse of the sky, hmm?

MICHAEL   
:(   
theres some sky!   
its fucked up sky but its sky   
cant knock it til youve tried it :3

SIMON   
No thank you! I’ve seen that door crop up in a couple places in my years, and I always do my best to just sort of ignore it.

MICHAEL   
really!

SIMON   
Yes! I don’t think it’s ever tried to bait ME into it -- I’m already claimed by one of the Fears ! -- but you never know! Those Spiral constructs are a tricksy sort.

MICHAEL   
they sure are!

SIMON   
It certainly sounds like it’s tempted you into its depths before!   
You must have gone on quite the walk to get so familiar.   
Michael?   
Are you there?

MICHAEL   
im here   
:)   
yes i am quite familiar with the distortion

SIMON   
Ah! I think Mike once mentioned you were marked by the Spiral.

MICHAEL   
i am   
sso sorry simon   
ahahahahahahaha   
ahhh   
:)

SIMON   
??   
Good god, I would not call myself a ‘curious’ man, but you are the most fascinating conversational partner, Michael!

MICHAEL   
bbbbbbbjkkkhl;jk;’   
hi simon. this is mike   
i want you to know that michael is practically shitting himself laughing right now

SIMON   
Ah! Hello, Mike -- I was wondering where you were!

MIKE   
not paying enough attention, apparently.   
i guess i may have forgotten to mention that my partner used to be the distortion?   
i apologize for the confusion.

SIMON   
Well, isn’t that a twist!!!!   
How in the world does that work, then ?? Is Michael that poor man who Gertrude Robinson fed to the Spiral?

MIKE   
yes and yes and it’s complicated   
dear god i’m embarrassed.   
also what the hell is your username

SIMON   
It’s my occupation and date of birth, of course!

MIKE   
……...right…..   
ha i should’ve known you and michael would hit it off   
he’s still laughing! god!   
brb

SIMON   
Of all people, Mike, I never thought you would be one to date the Distortion! I suppose that’s why you used to hate each other, isn’t it? Haha!   
Michael, if you’re there -- we should absolutely play some co-op video games together sometime. I think it would be a blast!   
I will make sure to choose a game that has no ‘fall damage’ mechanics ;-)

MICHAEL   
hi its michael again! i would love that

SIMON   
Excellent!

MICHAEL   
mikes making me help him finish packing now, but lets talk sometime soon maybe

SIMON   
Packing! Where are you going?

MICHAEL   
london!   
road trip!!

SIMON   
How exciting! I hope you have fun !

MICHAEL   
thanks! :)


End file.
